As I wrote in Part One, PERAB, President-elect Obama's new economic advisory board self-styles itself on Dwight Eisenhower's original PFIAB. So was the last Presidential economic advisory board, created by Ronald Reagan. Members of Ronald Reagan's President's Economic Policy Advisory Board:
Milton Friedman, senior research fellow, the Hoover Institution, and Nobel Laureate in economics.
Alan Greenspan, president, Townsend-Greenspan & Co., Inc., and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ford.
Arthur Laffer, Charles B. Thornton Professor of Business Economics, University of Southern California; president, A. B. Laffer Associates.
James
T. Lynn, managing partner, Jones, Day, Reavis, and Pogue; former
Director, Office of Management and Budget; and former Secretary of
Housing and Urban Development. George
Shultz will serve as Chairman of the Board. Martin Anderson, Assistant
to the President for Policy Development, will serve as Secretary to the
Board.
Paul McCracken, Edmund Ezra Day
University Professor of Business Administration at the University of
Michigan; former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under
President Nixon.
George Shultz, president, Bechtel Group, Inc.;
former Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Labor, and Director of
the Office of Management and Budget.
William E. Simon, former Secretary of the Treasury.
Thomas Sowell, senior fellow, the Hoover Institution.
Herbert
Stein, senior fellow, American Enterprise Institute; former Chairman of
the Council of Economic Advisers under President Nixon.
Charls E. Walker, chairman, Charls E. Walker Associates, Inc.; former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury.
Walter B. Wriston, chairman, Citibank/Citicorp.
Hmmm..lots of Nixonians, lots of Hoover Institute types, plenty of neo-classical economic thinkers. Not the sort of group that seems likely to have provided unbiased, nonpartisan advice. How will PERAB differ in this respect? We citizens need to know who the members will be sooner rather than later.
Heidi, thank you for another thoughtful piece. Just as 60% of Obama's campaign financing came from Wall Street, so is his advisory board comprised of old school, old line financial conservatives. Thus, his lip service to Change was nothing more than that, and his handlers, or, those who put him into office, are the same group that has essentially run things for a long time.
Posted by: truthisgold | December 01, 2008 at 07:57 PM