Yesterday, July 29, Senator Obama met with a council of known former and present economic intellectuals and policy-makers. The roster mostly tended towards the new-Keynesian mainstream of their party and were therefore always assumed to support their ideological nominee, but their collective presence is enough to illicit the Presidential appearance of a serious approach to economic policy.
Senator Obama, in a meeting with his top economic advisers. Source: barackobama.com
The names carry significant weight: Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, Former Clinton Treasury Secretary and Citigroup CEO Robert Rubin, Former Clinton Treasury Secretary and President of Harvard Lawrence Summers, former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, former W. Bush Treasure Secretary Paul O’Neil, former W. Bush Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner William Donaldson, AFL-CIO President John Sweeny, and billionare Warren Buffet; in addition to some lesser-known but well respected (by me, anyways) economics and finance analysts, notably Jared Bernstein, Senior Economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
The ensemble has the makings of an instantly formidable Council of Economic Advisers, once pruned. History tends to overlook that ideological diversity (at least in the allowance of some divergent voices) has proved beneficial, at least to an extent. President Reagan, while committed unofficially to neo-classicalism, included in his Council liberal economists like New York Times Columnist and Princeton Professor Paul Krugman and the aforementioned Lawrence Summers. Krugman often speaks of his underutilization, but the presence of dissenting opinion is a healthy break from the so-called supply sider dogma in today’s Council. Senator Obama’s decision to include O’Neil and Donaldson should be extended to include some of the great economists currently endorsing Senator McCain.
That said, I agree with Krugman that he should produce a largely liberal agenda – long-term fiscal balance, government reorganization, and extended effective regulation. But the presence of dissent is helpful politically and, I imagine, practically.
