Word: feldstein
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...tyro, an initiation into the ways of Washington can be harsh, as Economist Martin Feldstein has been finding out. Two months ago, Ronald Reagan nominated the highly regarded president of the National Bureau of Economic Research to become chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. But at his confirmation hearings Feldstein quickly got a foretaste of what awaits him in the task of giving advice on economic policy to an Administration whose program is under attack...
...Feldstein handily passed the first hurdle in the confirmation process last week, but during it, in the Banking Committee hearings that precede the Senate vote, he was badgered mercilessly by Committee Democrats eager to embarrass the President. His principal nemesis was Donald Riegle of Michigan, who hectored Feldstein about everything from his personal wealth to whether, because he didn't know the monthly cost of heating his Belmont, Mass., home, he was insensitive about the amount of money that Social Security recipients pay for utilities...
Riegle, who has a net worth of $200,000 and owns three homes, including a Michigan vacation condominium, at one point maneuvered Feldstein into admitting that his worth approached $750,000. Riegle brandished a sworn, confidential financial statement signed days earlier by the economist, which indicated that Feldstein's net worth was actually $1.2 million. In prosecuting-attorney fashion, the Senator demanded, "Do you recognize this document? Is that your signature?" Feldstein sheepishly admitted that it was. In fact, the larger figure included a calculation of pension benefits Feldstein cannot collect until age 59, and that he, understandably...
Though the testy interrogation had little if anything to do with his substantive qualifications as an economist, Feldstein, 42, took the ordeal good-naturedly. Said he afterward: "I went into the hearing room knowing that it wouldn't be a social chat. It wasn't particularly pleasant, but nothing about it was overly surprising...
Tough questions from Senators may turn out to be the least of Feldstein's challenges in his new job. With the Administration divided over the proper economic course to follow, the new chairman must naturally become actively involved in policy debates. At the same time he must not allow himself to become bogged down in interdepartmental feuding between the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget. Affable Economist Murray Weidenbaum, Feldstein's predecessor in the post, cast himself in the roles of both arbitrator and peacemaker and found his influence consequently diminished. Feldstein, by contrast, plans...