Matt Yglesias

Elmendorf to CBO

Doug Elmendorf, formerly of all the major public sector economic policy institutions (specifically the Federal Reserve Board, U.S. Treasury Department, Council of Economic Advisors, and Congressional Budget Office) and then the Hamilton Project at Brookings, will replace Peter Orszag at CBO. Elmendorf’s a moderate Democrat who wins praise from Greg Mankiw. I liked this paper he co-authored on the Bush tax cuts some months ago which concluded that “the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts made most U.S. households worse off” while helping to further enrich the already richest.

Readers may be interested in this and this from him on TARP. I’d be interested to know what’s the nature of the norm that ensures that the CBO Director’s job seems to stay consistently in the hands of broadly respected moderates even during a time of massively increasing polarization inside the congress.

One also wonders if Elmendorf will continue the CBO blog and/or whether Orszag will be blogging from his new perch at OMB.