Emanuel himself confessed, however, that he "begged" President Obama not to pursue the Affordable Care Act -- which, for all its flaws, has aided millions. As mayor, he moved to close mental health clinics in Chicago. Although the City Council headed off many of his planned closings, he was able to push many others through.
This move harmed many members of Chicago's disabled community. The Collaborative for Community Wellness, a local group, later found that Chicago's Southwest Side had 0.17 licensed mental health clinicians per 1,000 residents -- a tiny fraction of the 4.45 per 1,000 available in the upper-class Near North Side.
Unions
Voters support unions. In September, Gallup reported that public support for organized labor remained at its highest point in nearly two decades, with two-thirds of voters (65 percent) saying they "approved" of unions.
Rahm Emanuel is not one of those voters. During negotiations over the auto bailout, Rahm had this to say: "F**k the UAW!" He was talking about the United Auto Workers. As mayor of Chicago, Emanuel unilaterally cancelled a negotiated raise for the city's teachers, triggering its first strike in 25 years. He didn't even pick up the phone and call the union president before making his move.
The result was Chicago's first teachers' strike in a quarter century.
Deficit Spending
Data for Progress studied the electorate's views on deficit spending. In that research, likely voters were given pro- and anti-deficit messaging. The anti-deficit-spending message compared the government's finances to a household's need to balance its books. This was the pro-deficit-spending message:
"To put our financial house in order, we need to invest money in the American people. In the short term, this may mean increasing the debt but in the long term these investments will pay for themselves by growing the economy and creating jobs."
We found that, among all likely voters, 54 percent were persuaded by the pro-deficit messaging (only 35 percent agreed with the anti-deficit austerity message saying the government should balance its books). Two-thirds of self-identified Democrats preferred the pro-deficit message. A plurality (49 percent) of likely voters that self-identify as Republicans also preferred the pro-deficit message, while only 45 percent of self-identified Republicans supported the austerity message).
Emanuel's record as an austerity-minded "budget hawk" isn't limited to his tenure as mayor. His federal record also shows a predictable chumminess toward the wholesale budget-slashing advocated by billionaires like the late Peter G. Peterson. One example: In 2010, at the height of an economic crisis that was harming tens of millions of Americans, people urgently needed the federal government's help to survive the recession -- a recession caused by Wall Street.
Instead of stepping up services to beleaguered working people -- or providing the kinds of bailouts his Wall Street allies received -- Emanuel ordered federal agencies to enact 5 percent budget cuts across the board. Voters will not be happy with that record, either.
Conclusion
This, then, is the career of Rahm Emanuel. His life and work stand against the values most voters embrace. He must not serve in the new administration. We say that, not as members of the left (although we are), but as analysts who see a record that is likely to do serious political harm to the Biden administration. More importantly, the policies he's likely to promote would also do serious harm to the nation itself.
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