Jason Furman Joins the Obama Team
June 9th, 2008 . by economistmom
Jason Furman (by Patrick Andrade for the New York Times)
From Bloomberg News and the Washington Note, this bit of juicy news: Jason Furman has joined Economic Team Obama. I admit I’m a bit surprised that Jason’s willing to jump into a campaign again, having come through the Kerry campaign at least a little more cynical than when he started, but I think this is good news for fiscal responsibility. As the Bloomberg piece reports:
[Obama] advocates budgeting rules that require new spending proposals or tax changes be paid for by cuts to other government programs or new revenue-generating sources.
Furman and Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist who until recently was Obama’s top economic adviser, told reporters today that Obama’s “pay-as-you-go” position contrasts with McCain’s. They claim that the Republican senator from Arizona doesn’t provide details about how he would pay for his economic proposals.
Among lots of his other activities at Brookings (including running the Hamilton Project), Jason was a member of the Concord Coalition’s Fiscal Wake Up Tour. I’ll be sure to post some of Jason’s very relevant research and writing on fiscal policy over the next few days and weeks. (And Jason knows I’ll hold him to it.)
(Awesome photo, Jason.)
