Obama hires former Clinton aide for economy team
Jason Furman worked as a staff economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration.
WASHINGTON: Democrat Barack Obama is bolstering his economic team for the November White House race against Republican John McCain and has hired an official from President Bill Clinton's administration to be his economic policy director, the Obama campaign said on Monday.
Jason Furman, a 37-year-old expert on fiscal policy, worked as a staff economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration and also was a senior director for the National Economic Council.
He has also worked at the World Bank. Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the campaign felt it made sense to expand the economic team at this phase in the election contest. Obama, who clinched the Democratic nomination last week, has begun an economic tour through states like North Carolina and Missouri that are likely to be battlegrounds in the November election.
Furman, who holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, is an associate of former US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin through their work at the Hamilton Project, a forum for economic policy ideas at the Brookings Institution think tank. Furman has also worked closely with Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
The two co-wrote a paper on the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s. Furman is joining the Obama campaign as a staff member. He will work closely with Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist, who is a non-staff senior adviser to Obama and has played a major role in helping to shape the candidates economic plans.
ADVERTISEMENT
Furman told reporters he shares an emphasis with Rubin on "market-oriented policies and fiscal discipline." Obama has criticized President George W Bush's tax cuts as fiscally reckless. The Illinois senator has attacked McCain for his opposition to Democratic proposals for rolling back the tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans. McCain has labeled Obama's economic policies as "tax-and-spend." Obama said in a speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, that he plans to offer more details on his long-term agenda for the economy as he campaigns next week.
Download
The Economic Times Business News App for the Latest News in Business, Sensex, Stock Market Updates & More.
The Economic Times Business News App for the Latest News in Business, Sensex, Stock Market Updates & More.
Download
The Economic Times News App for Quarterly Results, Latest News in ITR, Business, Share Market, Live Sensex News & More.
The Economic Times News App for Quarterly Results, Latest News in ITR, Business, Share Market, Live Sensex News & More.
ADVERTISEMENT
