Obama's Centrist Economic Team

...one is a defender of Wal-Mart, and the other is a self-described “free-market type” who has drawn praise from the likes of George Will...

...With such fans, it’s not surprising that Furman and Goolsbee’s roles on the Obama campaign are generating quite a bit of angst on the left...

...Jason Furman, the director of economic policy for the Obama campaign, was head of the Hamilton Project, a centrist, pro-trade policy research group founded by former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin...

...BY CESAR CONDA Senator Barack Obama declared in a recent interview on the business cable channel CNBC: “Look, I am a pro-growth, free-market guy...

...So do these possible appointments indicate that a President Obama would move towards the center and become a “free market guy” as feared by the left or follow through with his statist campaign platform of protectionism and expansion of the regulatory state...

...Hubbard went on to say: “A team of Austan and Jason gives the Obama campaign punch in economic ideas—though the statist platform of the candidate suggests they have a tough road ahead...

...Of Furman, Hassett says: “Jason is a lot like Goolsbee, but has been more politically active...

...He wants higher fueleconomy 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...

...On the left side of the spectrum, Furman strongly supports universal health care, opposes Social Security privatization, and supports progressive taxation...

...There is certainly no question that an Obama administration is a frightening prospect for free-market advocates...

...In an article in the Nation about both Furman and Goolsbee, entitled “Obama’s Chicago Boys,” Naomi Klein wrote: “But before Obama can purge Washington of the scourge of Friedmanism, he has some ideological housecleaning of his own to do...

...corporate tax base by lowering the corporate tax rate and limiting exemptions, ? la Reagan’s 1986 tax reform...

...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 is pro-free trade, not an alarmist on globalization, and a defender of subprime lending on the grounds that it has expanded homeownership for minorities...

...I love the market...

...Although Austan Goolsbee is a professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, he is not a part of the famous “Chicago School” of such prominent free-market macroeconomists as George Stigler and Milton Friedman...

...Obama’s promise to reopen NAFTA alone should cause any degree of free-market economist pause...

...dollar and reducing energy prices...

...His main advisers, Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee, are both centrist, pro-free traders...

...He is a leader in the liberal onslaught against the Laffer Curve, producing research to show that income tax cuts “for highincome taxpayers likely gave windfalls to those whose incomes were already sharply rising because of broader market forces...

...But he is opposed to supply-side tax cuts— especially any further reductions in the top marginal rate—and personal retirement accounts for Social Security, and thinks the Internal Revenue Service should become the nation’s largest tax preparer...

...On the left-to-right spectrum, Goolsbee appears to be smack-dab in the middle...

...Jason Furman should certainly know the benefi ts of NAFTA inside and out...

...employment increased from 120 million to 135 million...

...He has written columns for the New York Times on such topics as why Americans came to embrace reality TV and why billionaires line up to bid for professional sports franchises...

...But he seems to be the sort of person— amiable, empirical and reasonable— you would want at the elbow of a Democratic president, if such there must be...

...And Obama’s economic team appears to support this claim...

...Glenn Hubbard, a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bush, said: “Austan Goolsbee is a very talented young economist...

...Most interesting, Furman wrote a 2005 paper arguing that Wal-Mart’s low prices and other policies benefi t low-income consumers...

...he served as a special economic assistant to President Bill Clinton, for whom the passage of NAFTA was a major political victory in 1993...

...To date, they have shown little appetite for fi ghting for free-market views and appear perfectly comfortable working for a candidate who is running on a statist platform of protectionism and bigger government...

...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...

...His deep well of experience will serve Obama well...

...Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute (one of John McCain’s economic advisers) calls Goolsbee “an honest and honorable scholar who can be quite clever academically...

...If Obama wins the White House, Furman and Goolsbee are slated to be at the center of the economic policymaking universe, with Furman a likely appointee as director of the National Economic Council and Goolsbee the top candidate to be the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers...

...The next president and his economic team will face enormous challenges— from managing the decline in the housing market to stabilizing the U.S...

...But how much comfort can conservatives take from Obama having such “reasonable” economic advisers...

...He would sign legislation raising the minimum wage and ending secret balloting for workers deciding on unionization...

...He favors broadening the U.S...

...Lori Wallach of Public Citizen told the Los Angeles Times: “Furman seems like a liability, given his anti-worker writings and statements about Wal-Mart, fair trade and other middle-class issues...

...Both Furman and Goolsbee have admirers on the right...

...Cesar Conda was an assistant for domestic policy to Vice President Cheney and a senior policy adviser to Mitt Romney during his presidential bid...

...The facts about NAFTA’s benefits are unassailable: Since its enactment in 1993 through 2001, U.S...

...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...

...And, while both Furman and Goolsbee purport to believe in free trade, they seem to have no trouble working for a candidate with a pronounced and public protectionist bent...

...According to George Will: Goolsbee no doubt has lots of dubious ideas—he is, after all, a Democrat— about how government can creatively fi ddle with the market’s allocation of wealth and opportunity...

...Rather, he’s one of the young economists whose work is referred to as the “new social economics,” focusing on how people behave and make decisions in their everyday lives...

...He is left-leaning, but would be a voice of reason in an Obama administration...

...Furman can best be described as a free trader who supports a robust social insurance safety net for displaced American workers...

...That Furman and Goolsbee have suspended their belief in free trade does not bode well for how hard they would fi ght protectionism in an Obama White House...

...Furman and Goolsbee will be at the elbow of a President Obama, if there is one...

...In that same article, Marco Trbovich of the United Steelworkers said: “[Furman] is a very bright fellow, but he is an unalloyed cheerleader for the trade policies that have been very destructive to manufacturing jobs in this country...

...indeed, I wish he was on my faculty at Columbia Business School (even though I disagree with his research showing a small distortionary effect of high marginal tax rates...