Reagan's Choice

A moderate for the CEA

It was not only one of the last top appointments in the new Administration, but in many ways it was one of the most important. Yet in the end there was little surprise when President Ronald Reagan last week appointed a moderate conservative, Professor Murray Weidenbaum of Washington University in St. Louis, to become chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

The CEA is a three-man board that provides the President with regularly updated economic reports on which an Administration can base policy. While the Secretary of the Treasury or the Budget Director may have more staffers at his command, the CEA director traditionally has had a key role in shaping policy because he is the President's private consultant.

Weidenbaum, 53, a onetime economist for the Boeing Co. and currently a member of TIME'S Board of Economists, was an adviser to Reagan throughout the 1980 presidential campaign and headed a task force on ways to reduce governmental regulatory burdens on business. That group recommended a one-year moratorium on all new federal decrees concerning health, safety and the environment. Among professional economists, Weidenbaum is best known for his work on the economic effects of defense spending, and his studies on the cost of Government regulation, which were among the first ever done on that topic.

Washington insiders have already divided Reagan's economic advisers into two groups: the radical supply-siders, who include Budget Director David Stockman and New York Congressman Jack Kemp, and the moderate Republican conservatives led by Treasury Secretary Donald Regan. Weidenbaum is expected to join the moderates, who place a little more emphasis on the need to reduce the budget and a little less on large tax cuts.

The long delay in appointing a chairman for the CEA fostered some speculation that the Reagan Administration had decided to down-play the role of economists in the Government. Their strength under Reagan is certainly less than under Carter. In addition to the chairman of the CEA, there were four Ph.D. economists in the first Carter Cabinet.

They were W. Michael Blumenthal (Treasury), James Schlesinger (Energy), Juanita Kreps (Commerce) and Ray Marshall (Labor). Three businessmen and a dentist have been given these posts in the new Reagan Cabinet.

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