Friday, December 08, 2006

New Boss at CBO?

The Wall Street Journal reports:
FORMER CLINTON ADVISER Peter Orszag is a prime candidate to head Congressional Budget Office under Democrats. Orszag has been working with former Treasury Secretary Rubin on the Hamilton Project to develop centrist Democratic economic policies.
As I noted in a recent post, among serious economists (a group which most definitely includes Peter), there is a range of views about how distortionary high tax rates are. You can read Peter's views in his congressional testimony, but this sentence from it pretty much sums up his perspective:

"Regardless of whether a substantial focus on marginal tax rates may have been appropriate when such rates were 70 percent or higher, that day has long passed, and therefore such a focus is no longer relevant."
For the opposite view, see Ed Prescott.

Update: Peter's appointment is official.