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Top economic advisers for the two presidential campaigns squared off during a lively forum at the Roone Arledge Auditorium on Oct. 20, spurred on by a litany of tough questions from a panel of renowned Columbia economists.

During the program, titled "Economic Issues in the Presidential Campaign," Austan Goolsbee, a senior economic adviser to Obama-Biden '08, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin, chief economic adviser for McCain-Palin '08, highlighted the differences of their respective candidates in areas ranging from education policy, to trade, to veterans affairs.

The debate was one of several major discussions on campus to deal with the upcoming election that day. At an Earth Institute event, financier George Soros, economist Jeffrey Sachs and Nouriel Roubini, a New York University economics professor, participated in a panel titled "Can We Save the World Economy." The Medical Center held an election forum on the merits of the candidates' health care plans. And Teachers College hosted another debate among presidential advisers, this one on education.

But the current financial crisis, the recession and each campaign's solutions for the problems were the central issues of the evening in Lerner Hall.

"In normal times, having a discussion with presidential economic advisers would be important," President Lee Bollinger said in his opening remarks. "But these are not just normal times. We have or are about to enter a deep and long economic recession. What is to be done?"

Goolsbee delivered the first opening and closing statements of the night. Sen. Obama supports a tax credit for businesses that create new jobs, he said. In the past, the Democratic presidential candidate has supported legislation to fund $400 billion to refinance mortgages, is in favor of a change in bankruptcy laws and believes additional stimulus is needed, beyond the $700 billion bailout package passed by Congress, the adviser said.

"It's clear we've got to allow restructuring or refinancing [of debt and mortgages] or face a second wave of foreclosures," Goolsbee said. He wasted little time attacking President Bush, the Republican party and John McCain.

"This slowdown" is the "very culmination of an eight-year trend" under the Bush administration "that said 'Let's have millions in unfunded tax cuts and let's let it filter down.' " Trickle down economics, he said, is "a job killer, not a job creator," and "that is very much what John McCain is advocating for the economy."

Speaking for Sen. McCain, Holtz-Eakin said the government needs to buy up failing mortgages to get them off the books, free up capital, save homeowners and prevent property values from plummeting. But his opening remarks focused in large part on Sen. McCain's "vision for the future of the economy."

It's a vision very different from that of his opponent, Holtz-Eakin said, "one where Americans can get up and go to a job," and for millions of Americans those jobs "will more than likely be in a small business."

Obama's policies, he said, would tax small businesses and continue placing American businesses at a disadvantage and sent jobs overseas. "We must take care of these small businesses," Holtz-Eakin said. He characterized Obama's philosophy as " 'I'm not worried about growth until it becomes politically expedient to create jobs. I'm going to spread the wealth.' "

By contrast, Holt-Eakin said, "John McCain is what he says he is. We have an array of problems that are unprecedented. John McCain is the only one running for president who has done things and reached across the aisle when it was not in his narrow political interest."

Much of the discussion was driven by questions from a panel moderated by Donald Davis, the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of Economics and International Affairs. The panelists included: Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz; Richard H. Clarida, the C. Lowell Harriss Professor of Economics; Janet Currie, who chairs the economics department; and Michael Woodford, the John Bates Clark Professor of Political Economy.

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