Austan Goolsbee

Austan Goolsbee, one of President Obama's most trusted economic advisers, said Monday night that he would resign, marking the latest departure from the president's economic team at a time when the nation's jobs recovery is slowing. Goolsbee, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers since September, is leaving to preserve his tenured professorship at the University of Chicago. Goolsbee stopped teaching at the university in 2007, when he began to advise Obama's presidential campaign.

President Obama recently said he would love to hire a top executive into his administration. But for the job of Treasury secretary, he didn't pick a corporate executive, a famous economist or a former politician — he has decided to tap a trusted adviser, White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew, an expert on the nation's ongoing budget wars. Obama on Thursday plans to nominate Lew to take over from Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, the president's longest-serving economic adviser , a White House...

LOIS ROMANO: Welcome, Dr. Austan Goolsbee, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers and the chief economist for the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Thanks for joining us. AUSTAN GOOLSBEE: Thank you for having me. ROMANO: So I have spent the past couple of days reading all about you, your five page r�sum� and watching you on "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," and it seems that you're just having way too much fun for a government economist. GOOLSBEE: I...

THE SIMPSON-BOWLES commission recommended that the federal government undertake $4 trillion in debt reduction. So did President Obama. Mr. Obama's advocates want to make it appear that the two $4 trillion figures are equivalent . "He has offered a reasonable plan of $4 trillion in debt reduction over a decade," former president Bill Clinton said last week in his Democratic convention speech. "That's the kind of balanced approach proposed by the Simpson-Bowles commission, a bipartisan commission.

· Senate Budget Committee holds hearing on the nominations of Peter R. Orszag to be director and Robert Nabors to be deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. · House Financial Services Committee holds hearing on the use of the Troubled Assets Relief Program funds under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. · Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee holds hearing on nominations of Mary L. Schapiro as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Daniel Tarullo as member of the Federal Reserve System Board...

Guests to be interviewed Sunday on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY WTTG, 9 a.m. Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.); Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine , chairman of the Democratic National Committee; and Michael S. Steele , chairman of the Republican National Committee. STATE OF THE UNION CNN, 9 a.m. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.); Christina Romer , chairman, Council of Economic Advisers; Democratic strategist ...

President Obama yesterday unveiled members of the White House Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Paul A. Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, will serve as chairman, and Austan Goolsbee, an Obama adviser, will serve as staff director and chief economist. Members of the board include: · Anna Burger , chair, Change to Win · John Doerr , partner, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers · William H. Donaldson , former chairman of the SEC (2003-2005)

He calls himself a "Jon Stewart Democrat," yet George Will raves about him. Austan Goolsbee, 40, is one of Barack Obama's top economic advisers, but the former University of Chicago professor doesn't suit up as a stodgy number cruncher. He was once part of an improv comedy tour in college, has held his comedic own with Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and isn't afraid of speaking his mind. Asked about criticisms that the Obama administration is spending too much money, Goolsbee replies, "In the face of the stiffest recession since 1929, that...

Anyone who has dared doubt the global influence of this column, guess again. People in high places take notice. Well, at least people in funny places. Monday's column on Jon Stewart taking more shots at President Obama lately -- even making fun of his teleprompter habit -- generated a bit of online buzz. I hadn't quite said that this was an LBJ-losing-Cronkite moment, but did suggest that it reflected a disappointment among liberals with 44's presidency. Now Mr. Stewart has responded.

THE SIMPSON-BOWLES commission recommended that the federal government undertake $4 trillion in debt reduction. So did President Obama. Mr. Obama's advocates want to make it appear that the two $4 trillion figures are equivalent . "He has offered a reasonable plan of $4 trillion in debt reduction over a decade," former president Bill Clinton said last week in his Democratic convention speech. "That's the kind of balanced approach proposed by the Simpson-Bowles commission, a...

C hristina Romer had been asked to scare her new boss. It was six weeks after the 2008 election, and the incoming administration had gathered in Chicago. David Axelrod, Barack Obama's top political adviser, couldn't have been more clear in his instructions to Romer: The president-elect needed to know how bad the economy was going to get. No pulling punches, no softening the news. So Romer, the preternaturally cheerful economist whose expertise on the Great Depression made her a natural choice to head the...

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has told President Obama he plans to remain in his job through the fall of 2012, keeping in place Obama's longest-serving economic adviser after the first-ever U.S. credit downgrade and renewed fears of a second recession. Geithner, who has been battling financial crises since 2007 as a top Federal Reserve official and then Treasury secretary, considered leaving the administration after Congress raised the federal debt ceiling and reached an agreement with Obama...

With Friday's departure of the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, President Obama has lost the last remaining economist on his senior economic team at a time when the recovery is weakening and the president is trying to devise a strategy to prevent additional economic turmoil. Heading into Obama's reelection campaign, his group of economic advisers is taking on a shape far different from the earliest days of his presidency, when Obama surrounded himself with some of the best...

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner , an architect of the Obama administration's economic strategy, has told the president that he may seek as soon as this summer to resign, according to people familiar with the matter. Geithner's departure would mark the loss of Obama's longest-serving economic adviser at a time when the recovery has slowed and the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high. Geithner has told the White House he will wait until the conclusion of talks with...

Austan Goolsbee, who just announced that he will step down as President Obama's top economist, tells the story of a flight he once took that got caught in a towering thunderstorm. The jet pitched and dove. Drinks flew. Lights went out. No reassuring announcement came from the cockpit. In front of Goolsbee, an older woman seated next to a teenager began screaming: "We're gonna die! We're gonna die!" "Wow," Goolsbee remarked to the teenager after a hard landing. "That was some flight.

During the dark days that began Timothy F. Geithner's tenure as Treasury secretary, he was constantly under fire, accused of bailing out Wall Street instead of helping ordinary Americans. With lawmakers from both parties calling for him to resign, it was an open question whether he'd last the year. Geithner recounted for colleagues what his teenage daughter told him: If you were in Iraq, people would at least understand you were trying to help the country. Geithner has not only survived but quietly gained influence, which he has...

Saturday night, "Washington Life's Magazine Social Year in Review" (WDCW at 8) looks at the 2009 party scene in Washington, from events featuring Zac Efron and Ben Affleck to the Salahi party-crasher scandal. A filmmaker follows endurance swimmer Martin Strel as he tries to swim the entire length of the Amazon River on "Big River Man" (Planet Green at 10). Sunday morning talk shows: "Fox News Sunday" (Fox at 9 a.m.) hosts Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.)