Wall Street versus Main Street: “Over-representation of Wall Street banks in senior government positions sends bad message" - by David Ignatius

The revival of the U.S. financial system after the crash of 2008 is arguably the Obama administration’s biggest domestic policy success. But Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), in her jihad against Wall Street, seems determined to devalue this accomplishment — and to make financial expertise a mark of shame for Democrats, rather than a source of pride.

Warren’s current target is Antonio Weiss, the president’s nominee for Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance. Weiss’s chief defect, in the eyes of Warren and other liberal critics, is that he worked as an investment banker at Lazard and, in that role, appears to have advised Burger King on how to reduce its U.S. tax liability.

“The over-representation of Wall Street banks in senior government positions sends a bad message.”

Warren and the neo-populists are right that the recovery hasn’t benefited Main Street as much as it has Wall Street and that the fruits of American prosperity are skewed toward the wealthy. Changing the structural problems that limit job growth may be the country’s biggest economic challenge, as Summers has argued persuasively.

But fixing this problem will surely be harder if liberal Democrats such as Weiss, who understand the financial world enough to challenge it, are barred from government for the offense of working on Wall Street. 

Read more: Warren’s war against Wall Street - The Washington Post