Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Austan Goolsbee appears on ABC?s "This Week with Christiane Amanpour."
(Fred Watkins/ABC News)Goolsbee Refuses to Say How Many Jobs Obama's New Stimulus Will Create
President Barack Obama spent last week rolling out new plans to help America's struggling economy -- $50 billion in infrastructure spending and about $200 billion in tax cuts for companies' investments in research and development. But just how many jobs will these pricey proposals create?Related
"It obviously depends on how you do it," he said. "It could have a significant impact on trying to get investment in factories…by small businesses in buying equipment, research and development and job creation in this country."
"Do you have sort of a target number?" Amanpour pressed.
"I do not want to speculate on that," Goolsbee replied. "The point of those policies, they aren't spending – they're the government giving tax cuts to businesses to invest in this country, that's what they are."
Goolsbee Tackles Bush-Era Tax Cuts
If Republicans were willing to accept an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for just the middle class, Goolsbee said "he would be happy," but he has his doubts."In the past we have seen some of these circumstances in which what appears to be the offer of doing the sensible thing – in the light of day, there is a little bit of a feeling, 'well, if the President's for it, I'm against it,' then it falls apart."
