Obama Taps Krueger As Top Economic Adviser

Alan Krueger
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President Barack Obama Monday announced his selection of Princeton economist Alan Krueger as his choice to succeed Austan Goolsbee as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Krueger served as the top economist at the Treasury Department during the first two years of Obama’s presidency and previously as Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Labor Department during the Clinton administration.

“In the first two years in this administration, when we were dealing with a complex and fast-moving” economic crisis, Obama said in brief comments about Krueger’s appointment, “Alan’s counsel as chief economist at the Treasury Department proved invaluable.”

Next week Obama said he plans to lay out “a series of steps that Congress can take immediately” as part of “our urgent mission” to jumpstart the economy.

The plan, he said, will be full of “bipartisan ideas that everyone can support.”

After a weekend consumed by emergency response to Hurricane Irene, Obama said the federal government and state and local municipalities are still dealing with the damage left by the storm. After the storm clean-up is finished, Obama said, the country can get back to focusing on the country’s No. 1 crisis: creating jobs and reviving the economy.

“Even when we deal with this crisis in this moment, our challenge is to create a climate in which folks can find good work…where families can regain a sense of economic security in their lives,” he said.

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