Obama made a pretty darn good pick today in Christina Romer. Surprisingly, she does have some conservative views, such as that tax increases lower GDP by threefold of the tax increase. This would explain why Obama is backing off of his previous tax increases on the rich program. Props to Obama, he seems to not be the ideologue he presented himself as being during the campaign.
Here's a link to one of her studies. If only we could get the economic discourse of The Ledge to this level! LOL!
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~cromer/draft1108.pdf