Though former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has a “major fundraising base” if he decides to seek the White House in 2016, he will still have to face potential donors who want to hear more about where he stands on the issues before making a financial commitment, according to Steve Lonegan, American Principles in Action's director of monetary policy.
Lonegan appeared Friday on
Newsmax TV’s “America’ Forum” where he discussed the GOP’s 2016 presidential race and criticized Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s decision to meet with liberal economic groups to discuss U.S. monetary policy while shunning center-right groups.
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“(Bush) has the problem of his major support of Common Core which is terribly unpopular, his support of amnesty, so he's going to have to
deal with those issues,” Lonegan said. “He hasn't really come out clearly and said I'm running so there's going to be a big battle over, and you have a number of people that are potentially candidates for president, including Chris Christie in New Jersey, who has the ability to raise a lot of money to compete for those dollars.”
Lonegan told host J.D. Hayworth that he didn’t think Christie’s proximity to Wall Street would necessarily give him a fundraising advantage. In fact, he added, Bush has an “equal if not better entre into those markets.”
“I don't know if the geographical position matters, however, I also don't know if the Republican Party in the country is ready for another Republican candidate from the northeast like Mitt Romney was from Massachusetts and so Jeb Bush is going to dig very deeply into what would've been Chris Christie's most important base going into the primary especially the fundraising area.”
If both men decide to run, they risk splitting the establishment vote, he said, suggesting that Bush and Christie “put their heads together and decide who's going to be the candidate.”
Having two establishment candidates in the race could buoy tea party Republicans such as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who have staked out rigid positions on their pet issues, he said.
“Both Governor Christie in New Jersey and Jeb Bush have a problem with the conservative base because of their somewhat wishy-washy positions on the issues that really resonate in a primary,” Lonegan said, opining that Paul “would be one of the best, if not the best candidate for president when it comes to controlling the Fed and sound monetary policy.”
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“That's my first bar for a candidate going into this election and that who has the guts to take on the 800-pound gorilla in the room and that's the Federal Reserve System in Washington D.C.”
He also had critical words for the Fed’s Yellen, who Lonegan says has far too much influence on U.S. financial markets, which he says ignore the fact that wages of low-income Americans remain stagnant.
“Since 1971 until now we've seen a widening income gap and we've seen the wages and the incomes of lower income wage earners remain stagnant for 41 years in a row,” he said. “Today, the Fed treats lower income – when lower and middle income wage earners get salary increases, they call that inflation. That's not inflation, that's prosperity, where we want to see a sound dollar.”
The country, he warned, is heading into
another recession.
“Wall Street is booming today but we all know that's not going to last,” Lonegan said.
“The question is how are we going to deal with it? In a couple of years when we do see a recession, what's going to happen? You know the left does not have a monopoly on caring about unemployment and lower income people.
“Conservatives have a better message on how to address that, that's why it's critical that Janet Yellen give equal time to the right-of-center groups.”
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