Cesar Conda has a great piece on Obama's economic
team in the latest Weekly Standard. The central question
is whether Obama's approach to economics will be closer to the
doctrinaire liberalism of his campaign platform or his more
pragmatic, market-friendly advisers. Jason Furman and Austan
Goolsbee are well respected, centrist free traders, not wooly-eyed
statist liberals, which is why many Obamacons cite them as evidence
that Obama is not so bad.
Conda is fair in describing what's good about Furman and
Goolsbee, but he doesn't spare the bad and the ugly:
But how much comfort can conservatives take from Obama
having such "reasonable" economic advisers? There is certainly no
question that an Obama administration is a frightening prospect for
free-market advocates. This self-described "free market guy" has
said he opposes the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)
and will reopen the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He
would sign legislation raising the minimum wage and ending secret
balloting for workers deciding on unionization. He would require
employers to pay for health insurance for their workers, mandate
coverage for all children, and expand Medicaid and other government
programs. He wants higher fuel-economy standards for new cars and
trucks, power companies to produce some of their electricity from
solar and renewable sources, and federal ethanol mandates.
Furman and Goolsbee are obviously in agreement with much of this
agenda, and both have been strong advocates of progressive
taxation. Goolsbee, in particular, has taken direct aim at the
conservative movement's biggest economic policy achievement of the
past three decades: the sharp reduction in marginal tax rates,
especially the top personal income tax rate. He is a leader in the
liberal onslaught against the Laffer Curve, producing research to
show that income tax cuts "for high-income taxpayers likely gave
windfalls to those whose incomes were already sharply rising
because of broader market forces."
Given the likelihood of taxes and spending rising on auto pilot
anyway, that sounds like reason enough to be worried about even the
pragmatic, market-friendly advisers.
topics:
Taxes, Trade, Economics, Medicaid
