KeithHennessey.com

The President is scheduled to hold a press conference Wednesday evening at 8 PM EDT. I offer twenty questions about economic policy for consideration by members of the White House press corps. They cover the economy, stimulus, taxes, autos, health care, energy and climate change, and trade.

The President and Vice President have this week sent mixed and confusing signals on the macroeconomic picture. This seems to be part of a broader problem with the Administration’s ability to send clear, coordinated, and internally consistent signals on economic policy.

KeithHennessey.com has now been live for eight weeks.  I would like to thank you for reading and give you a status update. I am pleased with the traffic for this fledgling effort.  I’ve had about 150K visits in eight weeks.  I am not certain how good that is, but it feels pretty good, especially given [...]

Yesterday I wrote about the history of tax increases since World War II, and about the battle over the total level of taxation.  Now I want to turn to spending. I am a low-tax guy.  I have worked on tax issues for 12 of my 15 years in Washington, helping elected officials lower taxes and [...]

Despite Secretary Geithner’s statement to the contrary, I still think the Administration is running out of room within the $700 B Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).  In my last four posts on TARP funding (1 2 3 4), I have stuck to what I think I can demonstrate analytically.  I am now going to shift [...]

Yesterday on his blog the President’s Budget Director, Peter Orszag, asks himself and then answers the question, “How much does the federal government owe?” This sounds like a technical question of concern only to “those of us wearing the green eyeshades,” but the Director’s suggested answer has dangerous ramifications, and could mislead or at least confuse [...]

The President has arrived in London for the G-20 economic summit.  I have different policy views than the President on some of these issues, but I will not criticize him while he is overseas.  I will attempt to gently highlight a couple of substantive issues that concern me, but at the same time I want [...]

Welcome to my new blog.  If you would like to learn more about American economic policy, I would be honored to be your guide.  I will do my best to explain the options faced by senior American economic policymakers, and to analyze the choices they make. I anticipate defining “economic policy” broadly as we did [...]

About Keith Hennessey About this blog About the National Economic Council About my work in the White House Photo credits Technical credits About Keith Hennessey I served as the senior White House economic advisor to President George W. Bush.  My job was to coordinate economic policy for the President, including macroeconomic issues, financial markets and [...]

The President hosted the Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy this past Friday and Saturday at the National Building Museum here in Washington, DC. This is the first of a two-part note.  Part one will describe the mechanics of the Summit and show some photos.  Part two will describe the substance. The action [...]