Strange as it may seem, Bush is having trouble finding conservative economists to come and help him push his second term agenda:
IT’S no secret that hurricanes and wars have swamped the economic agenda that George W. Bush planned for his second term. In the commotion, however, one fact has gone largely unnoticed: much of Washington’s expert economic team has disappeared.
The chairmanship of the Council of Economic Advisers will soon be vacant, and two spots on the Federal Reserve Board that were recently filled by academic economists already are. There is no assistant secretary of the Treasury for tax policy, and the director’s chair at the Congressional Budget Office, currently occupied by Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin, will soon be empty, too.
So let’s add that up:
1 Chairman for the Council of Economic Advisors
+ 2 Federal Reserve Board members
+ 1 Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (tax policy)
+ 1 Director of the Congressional Budget Office
= FIVE qualified economists wanted by the Bush Administration.
Surely there are 5 economists with decent academic reputations and good conservative credentials willing to help the Greatest President Ever get his economic program off the ground? Or are there?
“Bush’s reputation in at least the academic community is about as low as you can imagine,” said William A. Niskanen, who was a member of the council during President Ronald Reagan’s first term and is now chairman of the Cato Institute, a libertarian research group. “A lot of people would not be willing to give up a good tenured position for a position in the White House.”
Guess they don’t see much potential job security in working for Mister 34% and Falling Approval Rating. Or maybe the Administration is just having trouble finding anyone who approves of Bush’s economic policies:
Quite a few economists might have a hard time acting as the president’s mouthpiece today. Plenty of academics, even some who have supported Republicans in the past, have condemned the White House’s current policies. In particular, the enormous federal deficit has elicited ire from both left and right.
“There are a number of Republicans, both the right-wingers and the moderates, who are very uncomfortable about the deficits, and particularly about the spending that we saw in the first four years,” Mr. Mussa said.
Or maybe it has to do with how he doesn’t take their advice, or even consult with them much these days:
Mr. Niskanen suggested that this change could stem from a perceived drop in the prestige of the council. “Bush has centralized policy decision-making much more than any president in years,” he said. “The Council of Economic Advisers has been somewhat bypassed.”
Mr. Niskanen said that there were now fewer meetings between members of the council and members of the president’s cabinet than there were during his term. The council’s offices have even been moved to a building farther from the White House.
Whatever the reason, it seems that now that he needs a few of these effete intellectual types to pretty up his latest “Big Ideas”, they’re nowhere to be found:
ALL of these tensions may have resulted in a sort of Catch-22. The president’s inability to move forward with much of his second-term economic agenda – dealing with Social Security, the tax system, immigration and tort rules – may have dulled economists’ eagerness to work with him. Yet he may need them in order to start the wheels moving.
It’s almost enough to make me feel sorry for the bastard.
NOT!
I’d go work for W on the CEA (though not at treasury – I have some standards). I’m not an economist, not an academic, not even an MBA, but I’m willing to shill for whatever he asks for and put my reputation on the line for W. After all, it’s a cushy job these days what with no actual job to be done. In return all I would ask for is a cushy lobbying position in 2009. Is that too much to ask?
John Snow already filled the Secretary of the Treasury position. But maybe the CBO directorship would work for you?
Well, if the CBO is all that’s available, I suppose.
As for Treasury, my understanding is that Snow’s been trying to get out, and the Bushies have been trying to get him out, for ages. But there’s no one willing to replace him.
I’ll write you a letter of recommendation if you write one for me. We’ve got to be better than what he has and what the heck, credentials-schmedentials.
Frightening isn’t it? This is the first administration in my memory which has no economic bench at all. Usually, there’s six academics and four Wall Streeters in line panting for each of these jobs.
Job Listing: Expert Economists Needed to Fill Vacant Posts in the Bush Administration.
Qualifications: Must be a Bush crony with a passion for drinking the Bush Kool Aid. Must be completely without conscience and/or remorse. Poor memory also a big plus.
I could give him a true persective on how it is to live on SSD/I! But, I’d rather see the bastard impeached and put on trial!
It’s also possible that these conservative economists don’t want to be in the difficult position of actually having to put their policies into action. This would, of course, open them to the possibility of having their theories disproven through failure in the real world.
ROTFLMAO this is toooo much. Bwahahahaha
I’m in the business and have several close friends who have served on the CEA. Nobody with any professional pride would go there now. It has no influence (was moved out of the Old Executive Building), and no one comes out with their professional reputation intact. The CEA appointments were originally just for two to three years, and were intended to recruit the top academic economists as advisors to the President. This goes back to the 1946 Full Employment Act. Under Johnson the terms got longer — Arthur Okun was in for, I think, from 1964 to 1968. These are people with real lives outside government.
On the other hand, I have it on good authority that Mankiw came back to Harvard and started teaching his courses without missing a beat. He is going to have to do something besides write another textbook,however, to get his reputation back. Bloody shill. Hubbard, too. Hubbard went into the textbook writing business as well.
What would you recommend to rehabilitate the economic advisory system? We do need top advisers! Desperately.
It won’t happen under this administration. Bush has made it a pride of point not to take professional advice from anyone. The best economist they had at that level was John Taylor at Treasury, who quit last April. Bernanke was there not to give advice (that wouldn’t have been taken anyway) but to prove his loyalty so he could get Greenspan’s appointment. As to ‘Republican’ economsts — there are many excellent ones — though I don’t agree with them, but their priority is to get government about of the business of doing anything good for ordinary people. They are closet libertarians, true believers. They won’t come out openly against Bush because they think the FDR revolution that the democrats still carry was the worst thing to happen to the US since the South lost the Civil War. So they just keep their mouths shut.
The better Republican macro and monetary economists — I’m thinking of people like Bob Lucas, Tom Sargent, Ed Prescott, Alan Meltzer–are idealists. They really believe that there is a perfect world out there that we could achieve if we could only get the initial contract right and let the market do the rest. Mankiw and Hubbard are careerists.
There are still top-flight people at the Fed, and that’s where any critical decisions will be made in the event we have an economic meltdown. The White House is irrelevant.
After reading this I had two points to make. One was the one you already mentioned – no one wants to lose their reputation. Who can blame them?
The other is mentioned in the article of how the economists are bypassed anyway. I wanted to point out how we know have economists to add to the list of ‘bypassed’ experts. They join the list of:
Which have all been replaced by corporate lobbiests and think tanks. You get the drift.
As is already known Cheney and the other Cons wanted to take power away from established channels of decision makers and give the Office of President unlimited powers. Looks like they are winning.
I know there are more people and agencies bypassed. Any other suggestions?
Well, surprise, surprise. We’ve got a president that cuts taxes and spends money like there’s no tomorrow and is now known for blowing up at advisors that try to tell him the truth. Sounds like a great opportunity for somebody willing to do a heck of a job!
Maybe I’ve read too much on Atrios: but I read this and chuckled, Wickedly delicious! Excellent post.
Little inklings of hope keep popping up from place to place. It is said that a jury is the worst way to find truth, except for all the other means devised. It is said, and desperately hoped, that the same thing, in the long run [in a Freudian slip, I just originally typed that as “the wrong run”], maybe the American people will slowly turn back to sanity and throw the bums out.
Maybe. My hope for this society has taken what I thought was a fatal blow over the past few years. I actually put an offer on a house in Canada this year–and that deal blew up when it turned out the sellers were concealing a really major problem. Maybe, just maybe, it will turn for the better.
But the average person in this country still needs a MAJOR HUMBLING. I don’t think that should be writ out in blood and suffering. It should be an action of the entire world that turns its back on this country.
For example, I think it would be great if the United Nations would vote to stop accepting U.S. funds and to move to another country!
[be sure to credit this idea to Arminius, he he]
Actually, part of this is happening, just not noticed. You wrote:
“But the average person in this country still needs a MAJOR HUMBLING. I don’t think that should be writ out in blood and suffering. It should be an action of the entire world that turns its back on this country.”
The October balance of trade deficit was 66 +BILLION dollars. More than under all previous presidents combined.
42% of that was for the obscene oil profit increases. 58%, or 38.3 Billion dollars of American products and services people from other countries are NOT buying. With all the worldwide publicity of secret prisons, renditions and torture, perhaps the world has turned its back and are now boycotting American goods.