Goolsbee will be named to lead White House economic team

Goolsbee frequently is out front for the administration, talking on television news shows about the administration’s economic policies.

Recently, in talking about the extension of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts, he said “they have the absolutely lowest bang for the buck of any government policy.”

“So I don’t think there is any question that the president has not been keen to spend the money on that.”

Goolsbee, a 1991 Yale graduate, also is executive director for the Presidential Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which is headed by Paul Volcker.

He has his Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Goolsbee also is known for his sense of humor — he was voted Funniest Celebrity in Washington last year after performing a routine that resembled Kevin Nealon’s “subliminal man” from “Saturday Night Live” skits of the 1990s.