AEI Scholar Tapped to run FDA

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a health policy expert at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), has been selected by President Donald Trump to be the next head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Gottlieb, a Resident Fellow at AEI, has for the past decade also been a partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), a global venture capital firm investing in technology and healthcare.

The Washington Post reports that Dr. Gottlieb has longstanding ties to the drug industry, serving as a consultant or board member for several companies, including GlaxoSmithKline and Vertex Pharmaceuticals.  "He received ore than $400,000 in payments from pharmaceutical companies between 2013 and 2015, according to a federal database," says the Post.

A number of high-level think tankers have been tapped to join the Trump Administration in recent weeks, including Atlantic Council Chairman Jon Hunstman (to be US envoy to Russia), and Brookings scholar Fiona Hill (to join the National Security Council).

Agri-Pulse notes that Gottlieb's writings at the think tank focused on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and prescription drug policy.

More on the White House-think tank revolving door can be found here.

AEI Scholar Hassett to Head Trump's CEA

President Donald Trump continues to fill top White House positions with think tankers, with the latest announcement being that he has chosen Kevin Hassett, a Resident Scholar at American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the think tanks' Director of Research for Domestic Policy, to be the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA).

Here is more from Politico:

President Donald Trump is close to nominating conservative economist Kevin Hassett to be chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, people familiar with the matter said.

The selection of Hassett, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and strong advocate for a corporate tax cut, would come after a long wait for the president to pick someone to lead an office that will play a key role in crafting economic projections for the administration’s tax and budget plans.

Hassett, who is also the think tanks' State Farm James Q. Wilson Chair in American Politics and Culture, has previous experience with the executive branch, having served as a policy consultant to the US Department of Treasury during the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations.

His think tank biography says that he also served as an economic adviser to the George W. Bush 2004 presidential campaign, a senior economic adviser to the McCain 2008 presidential campaign, and an economic adviser to the Mitt Romney 2012 presidential campaign.

Hassett, like most others at AEI, is considered a "fairly mainstream free-market conservative."

A good analysis of Hassett has been done by Vox.

All of Hassett's think tank writings can be found here.  

Jason Furman, the CEA under President Barack Obama, recently landed in think tank land, as a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE).

A few days ago President Trump appointed another think tanker, H.R. McMaster, to be his National Security Adviser.