Alan Krueger, Obama's nominee to head the Council of Economic Advisers

Austan Goolsbee did his dissertation trying to show that higher tax rates didn't reduce how hard people worked. Obama's new nominee for that position, Alan Krueger, has a very similar set of beliefs. Krueger argued for example that higher minimum wages do not impact how many jobs are available for low wage workers. This guy fits Obama's view of the world and economics very well. From The Hill newspaper:

With the economy in dire straits in January 2009, Krueger, a Princeton economics professor, wrote that a consumption tax would be one possible tool to keep longer-term deficits in check as the government worked to stimulate the economy.

Krueger also stressed that he was not sure whether consumption taxes were the best way to proceed, only that the idea was worth considering. But he added that a 5 percent national sales tax could create an extra $500 billion per year in revenue “and fill a considerable hole in the budget outlook.”

“The prospect of greater revenue flowing into federal coffers would probably help lower long-term interest rates because the government would need to borrow less down the road, and further bolster the economy,” Krueger wrote on The New York Times website. . . .