[ad_1]
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) – As unemployment remains high and the pandemic threatens another economic crisis, President-elect Joe Biden is assembling a team of liberal advisers who have long focused on the country’s workers and government efforts to fight economic inequalities.
Janet Yellen, announced Monday as Biden’s candidate for Treasury secretary, was Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018, when she put more emphasis than previous Fed Chairmen on maximizing employment and less focus on price inflation. Biden also appointed Cecilia Rouse chair of its Council of Economic Advisers, and Heather Boushey and Jared Bernstein as members of the council.
All are strong supporters of increasing government stimulus spending to spur growth, a major problem with the coronavirus pandemic cramping the US economy.
These choices “signal the will of the Biden administration to lead the CEA in a direction that is truly focused on workers and increasing wages,” said Heidi Shierholz, senior economist at the Institute for Economic Policy and former chief economist. of the Department of Labor under the Obama administration.
The Biden nominees are also a more personally diverse group than those of previous presidents.
Yellen, if confirmed by the Senate, would be the first woman to hold the post of Secretary of the Treasury, after being the first woman to chair the Fed. Rouse would be the first black woman to lead the CEA in 74 years of existence. And Neera Tanden, Biden’s choice for the post of director of the Bureau of Management and Budget, would be the first South American to hold the post.
Biden also chose Wally Adeyemo as Yellen’s deputy, which would make him the first deputy secretary of the Black Treasury. Rouse, Tanden and Adeyemo will all need Senate confirmation, and Tanden in particular is already drawing heavy Republican criticism.
Along with its progressive cast, Biden’s team also has years of experience in government and policy making. And that deserves the applause of some conservatives, who note that the nominees are not a far-left group bent on strangling the economy, as President Donald Trump repeatedly warned during the 2020 campaign.
“They are liberal intellectuals, but not burnt socialists,” said Brian Riedl, senior researcher at the Manhattan Institute and presidential campaign adviser to Senator Mitt Romney. “They are fairly conventional economists and liberal experts.”
Still, the ambitious goals of the Biden administration will face strong opposition from Republicans in Congress. The GOP must win one of two Georgia Senate seats in a special election on Jan.5 to retain control of the Senate, and Republicans made major inroads on Nov. 3 in the Democratic House majority.
“Most of Biden’s policies will not survive a Republican Senate,” Riedl said. These include proposals to raise the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour and dramatically raise taxes for wealthy Americans.
Biden could secure another round of stimulus spending early next year, especially if recent spikes in confirmed virus cases push the economy into recession again. But such a package will likely have to cost less than $ 1 trillion to gain the support of Senate Republicans, Riedl said, rather than the higher number House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is seeking.
Tanden is president and CEO of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress and director of domestic policy for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign. She first made her mark in Clinton’s orbit and served as policy director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential race.
A spokesperson for GOP Senator John Cornyn of Texas tweeted that Tanden “has no chance of being confirmed” as budget manager, citing “an endless stream of derogatory comments about” Republican senators. And Josh Holmes, political adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, tweeted that his confirmation was likely doomed.
Brian Deese, a former senior economic adviser to the Obama administration and now managing director and global head of sustainable investing at BlackRock, is expected to be appointed director of the White House National Economic Council, according to a person familiar with the transition plans who was not allowed to speak publicly on the matter.
Deese worked on auto rescue and environmental issues at the Obama White House, where he served as deputy director of the NEC and OMB.
Deese and Adeyemo are both under fire progressives for their relationship with BlackRock, a giant Wall Street asset management company. BlackRock has sought to avoid further regulatory scrutiny by the Treasury. And many activists blame the company for holding huge stakes in oil and gas companies.
Rouse, a labor economist and director of the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, served on CEA from 2009-2011 and NEC from 1998-1999 in the Clinton administration.
Notably, she organized a letter earlier this year signed by over 100 economists calling for more government action to help Americans caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Planning for a fairer economy, based on facts and evidence, begins now”, Rouse tweeted on Monday.
Alan Blinder, a former Fed vice chairman and currently professor of economics at Princeton, praised Rouse’s management style and expertise in the economics of education and workforce training. Biden proposed to make two years tuition free at a community college.
“This stuff is in his wheelhouse,” Blinder said.
Boushey, chosen to be one of three CEA members, is president and co-founder of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, an inequality-focused think tank. The center conducts its own research and also gives grants to mostly left-wing academics to study aspects of inequality.
Bernstein, also nominated for the CEA, was an advisor to then-vice president Biden under the Obama administration before becoming a member of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-wing think tank. Bernstein also worked as a social worker and was an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a worker-backed think tank.
___
Associated Press editors Alexandra Jaffe, Paul Wiseman, and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.
[ad_2]
Source link