Perhaps no one in the federal government today fits that description better than Rebecca Blank. A poverty economist, a Clinton-era CEA member, and the former dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, Blank is now Commerce Secretary Gary Locke’s top economic adviser. She’s the acting deputy secretary at Commerce and the under secretary for economic affairs.
She’s also a pragmatic, progressive economist—like Goolsbee—who is reluctant to call for new government stimulus even as the economic recovery slogs through a “soft patch” of slowing growth.
“I think what the government is doing right now in terms of a push is not dollars of stimulus, but being smarter” in areas like streamlining regulations and cutting waste, Blank told National Journal, adding: “Could this economy take off again? The answer is absolutely yes. If you look at corporate profits, if you look at consumer balance sheets [improving] … gas prices are falling. I guess I understand the reason to say, let’s see if this economy can do it on its own.”
Elite sociopaths.