Professional Republicans, Not Professional Economists: How Low can They Go?
Among the professional Republicans, Ross Douthat joins Greg Mankiw in opposition to Steve Moore. So far, they are the only two I have seen—and Greg Mankiw is the only economist:
Ross Douthat: Why are people up in arms over Steve Moore for the Fed?: "The consensus in conservative academic think tank land is that Moore is an enormous hack, and this was true long before his Trump boosterism. Trump wants to nominate him because he's against Fed tightening, which is probably correct policy, but Moore pretty clearly is only taking that view because it's Trump's view and he likes Trump...
...As a meritocracy skeptic I can see the case for having more partisan hacks on the Fed, but Moore is definitely qualitatively different than any recent pick by a R or D president. It's case study in how when Trump stumbles into correct revisions of conservative orthodoxy, he then looks for hacks to implement them rather than people who actually urged the revisions when it mattered. Put another way: @RameshPonnuru has (much) more business being on the Fed than Moore...
So far, not a peep I have seen out of anybody else: not Marty Feldstein, Michael J. Boskin, John Cogan, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Glenn Hubbard, Lawrence B. Lindsey, Harvey S. Rosen, George P. Shultz, John. B. Taylor, James C. Miller III, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Barry W. Poulson, Charles W. Calomiris, Donald Luskin, or Glenn Hubbard.
#orangehairedbaboons #moralresponsibility #economicsgonewrong
