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This morning on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace moderated a discussion about the auto industry.  One of his guests was Dr. Austan Goolsbee, who is a Member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist on the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. I want to focus on some incorrect and inflammatory statements [...]

I began this blog at the end of March after the stimulus bill had become law.  I had been struck by how much the stimulus debate had focused on whether the bill was efficient.  (It clearly was not.)  There was much less discussion of whether the stimulus would be effective, and of the timing of [...]

The White House has released a letter from the President to the two Senate Chairmen who are working on (different) versions of health care reform:  Senator Kennedy (D-MA), Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.  The letter is dated yesterday and [...]

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 [...]

THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary _______________________________________________________________________________________ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 1, 2009 BACKGROUND BRIEFING BY SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS ON THE GENERAL MOTORS RESTRUCTURING May 31, 2009 Via Conference Call 7:10 P.M. EDT MS. PSAKI:  Thank you, everyone, for joining the call.  Just a reminder that the call this evening is on background, [...]

I wrote last Friday about the China/India hole in the American climate strategy: America appears to lack a high-probability strategy for how to get China, India, and Russia to agree to self-impose a significant positive carbon price. The Administration and its Congressional allies are trying to impose a significant carbon price in the U.S. through [...]

Today the Administration released more detail for the President’s budget.  The President tried to emphasize his fiscal responsibility by highlighting some of the programs he proposes to terminate or reduce.  Budget Director Orszag released the Terminations, Reductions, and Savings volume. This morning the President said, But one of the pillars of this foundation is fiscal [...]

The President’s Chrysler announcement last Thursday produced mixed results. The agreement among Chrysler, Fiat, UAW, the Administration, and the large banks appears to increase the probability (from almost zero) that Chrysler will survive for the long run, albeit as a part of Fiat.  This is clearly a good thing. Is it worth the cost to [...]

Tuesday I began with a simple example, which I am calling Large Bank. Yesterday we looked at TARP I, in which the government would buy troubled/toxic assets from banks. Today I will describe TARP II, the plan we (the Bush Administration) implemented, in which the government made direct equity investments in banks to help fill [...]

President Obama may not realize that the people who work for him are required to ignore hundreds (thousands?) of Congressional earmarks.  The President has the ability to stop them from doing so.  I hope that he will not. Thanks go to former OMB General Counsel Jeff Rosen for pointing this out. An Executive Order is [...]