In this YouTube video, White House White Board: Tax Cuts, Unemployment Insurance & Jobs, “…Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, discusses [makes a sad attempt at justifying] the President’s compromise framework on tax cuts, unemployment insurance & job creation.”

I responded with this comment:

You left out the Republican accomplishment of defunding Social Security.

You left out the Republican accomplishment of making it harder to cut the deficit except on the backs of the people who can least afford it.

You left out the the Republican accomplishment of making any attempt at economic stimulus be as ineffective as possible.

You left out the Republican accomplishment of rolling the President on a fight they couldn’t win. Their electoral chances were toast if they blocked the unemployment insurance extension.

If Goolsbee as an adviser to the President came up with this justification on his own, then he is not serving the President or the country very well. I have heard that the influence of Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago School of Economics is waning, but I think I see some of the taint of Friedman in what Goolsbee is saying.