It sounds like a former Obama Administration official is changing his tune on two of the President’s early stimulus efforts. Austan Goolsbee, former chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, says that in retrospect he would not have supported the Cash for Clunkers program or the home buyer tax credit. Politico reports: “Because we didn’t know if [economic recovery was] going to be short or long,” the Obama administration tried measures to address both scenarios, Goolsbee explained on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “If you look at Cash for Clunkers or the first home …
According to a recent White House video explaining the administration’s opposition to extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Austan Goolsbee claims: “If you ask objective economists and analysts around the country about what is effective you will find that everyone agrees that these giant tax cuts for very high income people are the least effective thing that we can do to get the economy growing.” Everyone agrees? If your definition of objective economists is limited to the White House’s economic team, then perhaps this …
It doesn’t matter who asks the question (CNN, Gallup, Pew, Fox, ABC, or CBS) the answer is always the same: the American people believe President Barack Obama’s $814 billion economic stimulus failed. The White House believes that this is a failure of communications not a failure of policy. Enter newly minted White House Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and 1991 college National Debate Team of the Year champion, Austan Goolsbee. Goolsbee has begun doing a series of videos trying to convince Americans that, despite nearly a trillion dollars …
The White House recently released a video defending President Obama’s tax hike plan featuring the new Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Austan Goolsbee. Goolsbee replaced Christina Romer in September. Even though the personnel have changed, the flawed arguments supporting the President’s tax hike plan remain the same. In the 90-second video, Goolsbee commits enough errors to fill a 30-minute speech. First, he argues that extending the 2001 and 2003 tax relief for all taxpayers would be a tax cut for “very high income people.” But extending the tax …
Last week, the White House announced a new White House White Board video series in which “one of our key players on the White House team will cut through the political back-and-forth you hear every day and break down an issue affecting American families into simple, understandable terms”. Their first video features Austan Goolsbee, the new chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, discussing the looming expiration of the 2001/2003 tax cuts. As you might expect, the video contains a number of distortions and falsehoods that we simply couldn’t ignore. …
President Obama reportedly plans to name Austan Goolsbee to head his Council of Economic Advisers. This appointment is good news for advocates of expanded international trade. One of the world’s leading trade economists, Jagdish Bhagwati, described Goolsbee as a valuable source of free-trade advice over almost a decade. During the presidential campaign, Goolsbee described his views on trade in the following way: I do believe there’s no one more in favor of open markets than me and that said, if you look at a free trade agreement—if you have never …
MINNEAPOLIS – Economic advisers from both Barack Obama and John McCain’s campaigns squared off in a panel on tax policy this afternoon, and the consensus among the non-partisan members of the panel was that no matter who wins, Americans should not expect any major changes in tax policy. After both John Taylor and Austan Goolsbee made the case for their candidates’ tax plan to the crowd at the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Michigan economics professor Joel Slemrod presented a power point presentation that concluded neither candidate …
