What we know about Jeb Bush's new policy director, Justin Muzinich

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What we know about Jeb Bush's new policy
director, Justin Muzinich
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• Jeb Bush is expected to tap finance veteran
  Justin Muzinich as policy director for his
  yet-to-be-announced presidential campaign, the
  National Review reports.
• Muzinich is vice president of Muzinich Co., an
  international investment firm. He's also worked
  at Morgan Stanley and hedge fund EMS Capital,
  according to National Review.
• He's also has written a number of opinion pieces
  in major newspapers over the last few years on
  policies ranging from the Fed to trade to foreign
  aid. His ideas tend to focus on ways the
  government can either help businesses grow
  faster, or incentivize businesses to accomplish
  goals that might otherwise be done by public
  programs.

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Since policy director is central to a
presidential campaign, here's a look at his key
arguments.

• He wants to give the Fed a makeover
• In a 2011 Washington Post op-ed, Muzinich called
  for a new Fed mandate financial stability. In
  the piece, coauthored with Glenn Hubbard, dean of
  the Columbia Business School and top economic
  adviser to Jeb's brother, George W. Bush, the two
  argue that the Fed needs a new mandate to make
  sure it spots instabilities like the housing
  bubble and "financial excesses" of the
  pre-financial-crisis era.

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• They wrote that promoting financial stability
  should be an "explicit part" of the Fed's
  mandate. Currently, the Fed has a dual mandate
  (of maintaining full employment and stable
  prices). Many other Republicans want to change
  it, as well, but they'd simply like the central
  bank to cut back to just one directive, of price
  stability.
• Muzinich and Hubbard's idea could also easily
  tighten (or at the very least complicate)
  monetary policy using interest rates to try to
  keep bubbles in check could run counter to the
  Fed's goal of promoting full employment. Trying
  to keep markets from overheating might prevent
  the job market from heating up.

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He wants a trade agreement with Europe

• Passing the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
  Partnership, he argued in a January FP editorial
  (coauthored with James Stavridis, dean of the
  Fletcher School of law and Diplomacy at Tufts),
  would be one way for the US to boost Europe out
  of its economic funk.
• Trade agreements are going to be a hot topic in
  Washington and on the campaign trail in the
  coming months, as the Obama administration
  negotiates the T-TIP and the currently more
  contentious Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade
  agreement with Pacific Rim nations. Both
  progressive and far-right politicians have
  opposed different aspects of these treaties, as
  well as the Trade Promotion Authority
  authorization the Obama administration wants in
  order to negotiate those treaties.

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He wants to rethink foreign aid
More broadly speaking, though, Muzinich in this
editorial is worried about neglecting Europe as
the Obama administration undertakes its "pivot to
Asia."

• In a 2007 New York Times op-ed, Muzinich
  advocated modeling US foreign aid on a 2000
  Community Renewal Tax Relief Act, under which
  businesses got a tax credit (known as the New
  Market Tax Credit) for developing in poor
  neighborhoods. That tax credit still exists
  today. The idea is to give companies similar tax
  credits for doing business in developing nations.

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• But it's possible this sort of policy idea could
  backfire in a presidential campaign, as economist
  Greg Mankiw pointed out in a response to the
  op-ed "Imagine what would happen, however, if a
  political candidate of either party were to come
  out in favor of the proposal. The opposition
  would quickly lambast it as the 'outsource
  American jobs to third-world sweatshops tax
  credit.'"

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