What we know about Jeb Bush's new policy director, Justin Muzinich
                     What we know about Jeb Bush's new policy dire
ctor, Justin Muzinich
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.
Since policy director is central to a 
presidential campaign, here's a look at his 
key arguments.
1) 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.
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.
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.
More broadly speaking, though, Muzinich in this 
editorial is worried about neglecting Europe as the 
Obama administration undertakes its "pivot to Asia."
He wants to rethink foreign aid
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.
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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