Let’s talk about something positive. I don’t know much about economics, and what I do know I got from reading Paul Krugman’s column. So it’s very reassuring to me that Krugman says good things about the people Joe Biden has chosen for his economic team.
See also Krugman’s recent column, In Praise of Janet Yellen the Economist.
And then there’s Paul Waldman, Joe Biden Finds a Goldilocks Economic Team.
Consider the economic team that Biden has been rolling out, and that he formally introduced on Tuesday. This promised to be an area of significant risk, because progressives worried he would do what President Barack Obama did and hire a group of people who were either from Wall Street or sympathetic to its desires. They were preparing to bring all kinds of heat down on Biden if he went that route.
But, for the most part, that hasn’t happened. Biden has found people such as Janet L. Yellen, who is to be nominated for treasury secretary, who can satisfy nearly everyone in the party. Each slightly more centrist adviser seems counterweighted by a more liberal one. …
… As The Post’s David J. Lynch reports, Biden has “filled out his economic team with experts who have called for rebuilding the economy first and dealing with deficit concerns later.” Everyone seems to have learned from Obama’s experience, in which Republicans forced him to accept austerity policies that hampered the recovery from the Great Recession.
Waldman acknowledges that some team members might have called for deficit reduction in the past, but not now, not in our current circumstance. Again, this is all very reassuring to me.
Of course, there are some people on the left already screaming about too much corporate power in this group — David Sirota, for example, whom I have pretty much tuned out. Let’s give the new team a chance. Let’s not start bashing the Biden administration for selling out until it actually sells out, okay? Thanks much.
Possibly the most controversial member of the team is Neera Tanden, nominated to head the Office of Management and Budget. To her credit, Lindsey Graham called Tanden a “nut job.” On the other hand, she’s been known to butt heads with Bernie Sanders supporters. Brian Beutler, Crooked:
Prior to her nomination, Tanden had mostly been a lightning rod within Democratic politics. She’s a protege of Hillary Clinton, and, as president of the Center for American Progress, closely associated with the party establishment. Among Bernie Sanders’s online fans, she’s arguably drawn more ire than any party figure other than Clinton herself, and has tussled publicly with party critics, including, on more than one occasion, me.
Her nomination came as a surprise to most political dweebs (including me again) but also, in most cases, as a relief. Even many of Tanden’s detractors were glad Biden nominated someone opposed to austerity, and attuned to the GOP’s feigned, situational fearmongering over deficits, rather than one of the deficit hawks reported to have been in the running.
Gregory Krieg and Ryan Nobles, CNN:
By the time she was introduced by Biden on Tuesday, alongside other senior members of his economic team, Tanden’s path to Senate confirmation already seemed in some peril — but not because of dissent from the left. The pugilistic president of the Center for American Progress and longtime aide to Hillary Clinton has punched both ways during her long political career. Some Senate Republicans were quick to highlight her past attacks on the right as a reason they might oppose her confirmation.
But among progressive leaders, her nomination set off more confusion than anger. It also complicated their efforts to balance grassroots work with efforts to engage and influence Biden’s team. Once the initial shock subsided, though, sighs of relief were the more prominent sounds — the left’s concerns that Biden might select a committed deficit hawk as his budget director had overwhelmed its widespread personal distaste for Tanden.
I’m inclined to cut her some slack and see what she does. The Republican case against Tanden is, basically, that she’s too political. Yeah, IOKIYAR. See Steve Benen, The Republican case against Neera Tanden crumbles under scrutiny.
There’s more about the team, so far, here.
Update: Here’s another choice facing some pushback. See Martin Longman, Washington Monthly, The Overwrought Opposition to Brian Deese. Deese has been tapped to direct the National Economic Council, and some progressive groups object. Longman explains why:
It’s mainly because he was hired by the gigantic investment firm Blackrock to serve as their Global Head of Sustainable Investing, a job “focused on identifying drivers of long-term return associated with environmental, social and governance issues.”
In that position, he’s been under pressure to divest from industries that contribute to climate change. And, while he’s been responsive to these concerns, ruling out investments in mining companies that generate 25% or more of their revenues from coal, Blackrock remains heavily invested in fossil fuels.
Longman explains why he thinks the objections are overwrought.
See also Alex Thompson and Theodoric Meyer, Politico, Biden top economic adviser facing accusations of mismanagement, verbal abuse. Heather Boushey, who has been appointed to the Council of Economic Advisers, has been accused of being a toxic manager.
