Kevin Hassett will chair the Council of Economic Advisers, the White House's economic analysis operation. | AP Photo Senate confirms free-market advocate Hassett as top Trump economist

The Senate on Tuesday voted 81-16 to confirm free-market conservative Kevin Hassett as President Donald Trump’s chief economist, approving a key adviser whose views clash with Trump's base on both immigration and trade.

Hassett, a tax expert at the American Enterprise Institute and a former senior economist at the Federal Reserve, will chair the Council of Economic Advisers, the White House's economic analysis operation. His confirmation puts him in a potentially pivotal post as the administration seeks to overhaul the tax code.


At his April confirmation hearing, Hassett refused to outright endorse Trump’s policies, saying he was not an expert on the subject of a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. He also cited research showing that immigration increases productivity, spurring a backlash from some of Trump’s core supporters.

“If Hassett is confirmed, that will be a win for the corporatist, business-first faction in Trump’s White House, which fights for influence in the Oval Office against the populist, America-first faction that helped Trump win the election,” Breitbart News said after Hassett was tapped for the job.

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Hassett has also advocated for lowering trade barriers, in contrast to his new boss.

But he has also defended Trump’s goal of attaining 3 percent annual GDP growth through tax and regulatory reform.

“It's absolutely possible to return to a place where you could get to 3 percent growth if we get to policies that could encourage capital formation in the U.S.,” Hassett said during his hearing.

A prominent conservative, Hassett has a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and served as a policy adviser to the Treasury Department under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He also advised the presidential campaigns of John McCain in 2000 and 2008, George W. Bush in 2004, and Mitt Romney in 2012.

Unlike in President Barack Obama’s administration, the CEA chair will not be a member of the president’s Cabinet, which some view as reflecting Trump’s distaste for academic economists.

The CEA helps produce the annual Economic Report of the President and serves as the main liaison between the West Wing and the economic data offices at the Labor and Commerce departments and other federal agencies.