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There is much debate about whether a health care reform bill should include a government-run health insurance plan, a so-called “public option.”  Advocates argue that such a plan can compete fairly with private health insurance, and that this competition would “keep insurers honest.”  They also argue that more choices are a good thing. I fall [...]

This is the second in a series of occasional posts about the nitty gritty of working in the West Wing of the White House.  I am describing things as they were in the Bush Administration.  YMMV in the Obama Administration.  Again, it seems a bit silly to write about such trivial details, but given the [...]

Many of you are new to this blog since I wrote extensively about autos six weeks ago.  As background, I coordinated the auto loan process for President Bush last fall as the Director of the White House National Economic Council (the position now held by Dr. Lawrence Summers).  I wrote a series of posts on [...]

Today the 19 largest banks are getting the results of their stress tests from their regulators.  Should these results be made public? This is not a simple question. The big upside is that markets will have more information, and that all market participants will have access to the same information.  This can allow investors, counterparties, [...]

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 [...]

I would like to compliment and thank President Obama for saying this in Strasbourg, France last Friday: As we take these steps, we also affirm that we must not erect new barriers to commerce; that trade wars have no victors. We can’t give up on open markets, even as we work to ensure that trade [...]

Thanks to Reuters’ MacroScope blog for noticing: Keith Hennessey, a former top economic adviser to President George W. Bush, saw this one coming. He rightly predicted that the Group of 20 would drop a key word from its communique at the conclusion of the London Summit: Free. Here is my original post from Wednesday:  A [...]

Heidi Collins of CNN interviewed former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich and me this morning around 10:30 AM on CNN Newsroom. To my surprise, Secretary Reich and I agreed on a lot.  We both came out strong against protectionism, and complimented the G-20 leaders for making a strong statement about this.  We’ll see if the [...]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the March employment report at 8:30 am.  Here is the least you need to know: Net payroll employment declined in March by 663,000 jobs. That’s a terrible number, and in line with expectations. The unemployment rate increased from 8.1% to 8.5%. Much of the press coverage talks about “5.1 [...]