Politico's Mak Buries the Lede: Austan Goolsbee, Supply-Sider
The easy catch in former Obama administration economic adviser Austan Goolsbee's Thursday interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," as reported by the Politico's Tim Mak, is that he believes that "if given a second chance he would not have backed the Cash for Clunkers program or the home buyer tax credit." Goolsbee's excuse for his changed position -- that the administration didn't think the recovery would take so long, when the administration's policies have primarily explain why the recovery has taken so long -- is characteristically lame.
Something else Goolsbee said is far more surprising -- so surprising that one wonders if famed supply-side economist Arthur Laffer somehow temporarily took over the former Obama adviser's mind and body. One also wonders why Mak saved what Goolsbee said for his report's final two paragraphs instead of headlining and leading with it.
Here they are:
Goolsbee also disagreed with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who said Wednesday that “private-sector jobs have been doing just fine” and that the focus should be on saving public sector jobs.
“I guess I would disagree a little. I think at this moment, the government still has an important role to play, it’s to get the private sector going, and we can do that with tax cuts and incentives,” he said.
"Tax cuts and incentives"? Holy Reaganomics, Batman! The only wiggle room Goolsbee may have is that he doesn't mean "across the board" tax cuts. But given the administration's current dogged insistence on tax increases and silence on tax cuts, that's hardly relevant.
If only Goolsbee, Obama's economic team, and the President himself had channeled their inner Laffer during the administration's first few months, Investor's Business Daily would never have created the following grim graphic:
Of all the recoveries since World War II, only one has taken longer than three quarters to get back to where it was when the downturn began -- the not-quite-there after eight quarters recovery which we currently inhabit.
Goolsbee's time with Obama goes all the way back to his 2004 senatorial campaign, and he was Obama's senior economic adviser during the 2008 presidential campaign. Where was your inner Laffer when we needed it, Austan?
If this were a current or former Bush adviser openly disagreeing on a fundamental economic policy (e.g., David Stockman with Reagan in the early 1980s), I don't Tim Mak would have distracted readers with the Cash for Clunkers eye candy in hopes that readers wouldn't get to the really big item at the end.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
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Comments
I'd love to hear an argument
Submitted by bkeyser on Fri, 10/21/2011 - 8:25pm.
for taxing the rich other than the "paying their fair share" garbage; that's so subjective it's not even remotely viable.
I've tried to rationalize it; we all go through times when our own struggles seem unfair or unjust. But putting aside emotion and relying instead on logic and numbers, taxing the rich as a cure for anything we're currently facing just doesn't pass the smell test. It doesn't do squat for the deficit. It doesn't get people back to work in the near term, and a trillion dollars of spending didn't get people back to work in the long term. All it did was prop up a few chosen sectors -temporarily. If we gave billions of dollars to states to retain teachers over the last two years, why do we need to spend another 35 billion this year for the same purpose? Do we need to spend 35 billion additional each year for the NEA in perpetuity?
So please, someone -someone much smarter than I, explain to me how Obama's plan will grow the economy by 2 percentage points and put 1.9 million people to work.
The whole meme of "targeted"
Submitted by robert108 on Fri, 10/21/2011 - 10:19pm.
The whole meme of "targeted" tax increases is bunk. Taxes are fungible, as the case of Carter's misguided tax on luxury boats illustrated. Jacking up taxes just takes more money out of the private sector, and that hurts us all, except for the public employee unionists, of course.
Huh, now who would of thunk
Submitted by amyshulk on Fri, 10/21/2011 - 10:52pm.
Huh, now who would of thunk it, that trying to control behavior by the tax code would have the "unintended consequence" of delaying our recovery?
Oh wait, I thunk it, as did Thomas Sowell, Cavuto, and many, many, MANY, more. But they {D's} are so blinded by their "smartest guy in the room" they refused to believe what anyone with common sense already figured out!
Ronald Reagan
Goolsbee needs...
Submitted by bigdaddy on Sat, 10/22/2011 - 2:12am.
...to have battery cables affixed to his manhood for selling out common sense...
The reason is simple, Tom...
Submitted by motherbelt on Sat, 10/22/2011 - 7:02am.
Mak hoped that readers would lose interest by that time and stop reading.
Or, a last-minute, guilt-ridden stab at being honest and thorough....Naaaah.