Until now, Austan Goolsbee, an economist at the University of Chicago, had been Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser. He remains an unpaid adviser. He said he was not a candidate for Mr. Furman’s full-time job because of his university duties. Mr. Obama’s campaign aides, among them Bill Burton, the press secretary, emphasize that Mr. Furman has already consulted a range of experts, from Mr. Rubin and Lawrence H. Summers, the Harvard economist who succeeded Mr. Rubin as Treasury secretary. Others consulted include Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate in economics who is critical of Rubinomics; Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute; and James Galbraith, a University of Texas economist whose Keynesian approach and preference for public spending is to the left of Rubinomics. “Of course, I’m part of it,” Mr. Galbraith said. “Jason is a guy I know, a professional I respect. If he wants my views, I’m quite happy to be giving them to him. The task before us is to develop practical steps for the problems before us now.”
The New York Times
Union Critical of Obama’s Top Economics Aide
June12
