In a development as predictable as the sunrise, The Hill reports that congressional Republicans will greet President Biden by re-embracing their inner deficit hawks and focusing “on curbing the nation’s debt and reforming entitlement programs starting in 2021.” It’s a pattern established with Ronald Reagan—Republican administrations run massive deficits. Then Republicans in Congress demand incoming Democratic administrations make unpopular cuts to solve the fiscal crises they’ve created.
Progressives don’t want to watch another episode, which is why they’re on the lookout for any Biden appointments who may have advocated entitlement reform and other kinds of deficit hawkery in prior iterations of this drama.
Near the top of their list is Brian Deese, reportedly Biden’s selection for director of the National Economic Council, a 42-year-old with a resume that would make any parent proud.
He graduated from Middlebury College and Yale Law School. He started as a Hillary Clinton supporter in the 2008 campaign cycle and when Barack Obama won the nomination, Deese moved over to his campaign. He was so impressive that he was given responsibility for working on the auto bailout. In a profile for the New York Times, Deese revealed that “There was a time between Nov. 4 [2008] and mid-February [2009] when I was the only full-time member of the auto task force.” In that role, he successfully negotiated the merger of Fiat and Chrysler.
From there, he just kept moving up. He was appointed to the National Economic Council and promoted to deputy director working under Gene Sperling. He then took the deputy director role at the Office of Management and Budget and even served briefly there as the interim director. Obama next gave him the position of Senior Advisor to the President for climate and energy issues, and he was instrumental in negotiating the Paris Climate Agreement. In February 2016, after the death of Antonin Scalia, he was put in charge of ushering his replacement through the Senate confirmation process which proved to be a fruitless task since Mitch McConnell blocked the ascension of Merrick Garland.
There’s something about Deese that inspires confidence which is why Obama gave him such disparate and vital roles at such a young age, including on issues like the economy and climate for which he had no formal training.
Why, then, is he on a hit list, as David Dayen of American Prospect describes it, of people progressives do not want to see serving on Biden’s economic team?
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.
It’s easy to identify areas where his record is being distorted. He’s been criticized for defending Hillary Clinton’s proposal in 2007 to push Congress to adopt the Pay-As-You-Go rule. At the time, he was a 29-year-old advisor who was expected to support the candidate’s position.
Beyond that, the PAYGO rule was adopted by Nancy Pelosi in 2019 after she began her second stint as Speaker of the House. It forces Congress to identify cuts to match any new spending. However inadvisable it may be, it’s currently a mainstream Democratic position that any increase in appropriations needs to be offset to make them deficit-neutral.
Deese has at times sounded like a deficit hawk. Still, any veteran of the Obama economic team who lived through the debt-ceiling crisis of 2011 is probably guilty of advocating for some kind of austerity to meet the Republicans’ halfway in their reckless push to force spending cuts.
Likewise, it seems unfair to blame Deese for supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, a major priority for the Obama administration which Biden and Hillary favored until they didn’t. In retrospect, progressive complaints about the agreement seem overblown. With China just completing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership with 14 nations, it’s clear that America lost its chance to be the economic leader in the Pacific region and is still losing jobs. This is precisely the result the TPP was intended to avoid.
The directorship of the National Economic Council is an important position, previously held by heavyweights like Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, but it’s still just an advisory, broker position. It’s understandable that progressives, anticipating another battle against austerity, would prefer to see a like-minded individual in the role, but the opposition to Deese is overwrought. You’ve got liberals at the Council of Economic Advisors. Janet Yellen will not be an austerity Treasury Secretary. She favored the elaborate expansion of Fed power when Ben Bernanke was chair. One thing everyone can agree on is that Deese is not an idiot and only an idiot would try to impose an austerity agenda on a president and administration that doesn’t want one. Like Clinton and Obama before him, Biden trusts him to provide solid advice, and I think there are more productive areas for progressive pushback.
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Crazy democrats are nuts, all those socialists want to do is increase the debt. And then there are the republicans under Trump.
https://www.thebalance.com/trump-plans-to-reduce-national-debt-4114401
And he ain’t finished yet.
Don’t be silly, debt doesn’t matter. You don’t even need to be an adherent of MMT to see that. As long as the US is on sound economic footing as the global resrve currency we will be fine. Interest rates are low. Inflation is low. No signs that is changing. Now is an excellent time to borrow to invest in public health, education, infrastructure to pay dividends long term and provide stitmuluous and QoL improvement short term. Even if you are a household it’s a pretty good time to take out a loan under those conditions.
tl;dr – Socialists are right and you are wrong.
Of course. I was being snarky about it. Our debt is the safest in the world. It is why we are called the reserve currency. What I find silly is the republicans and Trump can increase the debt by trillions and then do an about face on it. That article I posted even said that when debt gets over 77% we are in trouble. Well it is now about 135% so I guess we are in trouble. That is utter nonsense but none other than the World Bank said so. It is not just silly but bullshit. Trump increased the debt significantly and we are all still here to listen to the conservative crap.
The deficit Trump created for his tax cuts was money for the benefit of his wealthy benefactors and for himself. That sort of deficit bothers me. How is it that the rich get such a large handout and the people get nothing?
Sorry, seemed weird you would say that but didnt catch the sarcasm. Thanks for clearing it up!
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That sounds like the Performative Purist Progressive caucus—their motto is “we win by losing,” and their mascot is Eeyore—throwing one of their classic temper tantrums.
I don’t know the details of what Deese was doing at Blackrock. But if it moved them towards investment in sustainable energy by any significant amount, it is likely that he did more for the climate than 90% of progressive activists.
My one remaining hope for addressing the climate emergency is that we can use financial regulations to force banks, companies, and investment firms to price in the economic implications of a changing world. If Deese has the expertise to make this happen, then as far as I’m concerned he is a *great* choice.
The objection to Deese is the same as that to Tanden. They’re not technically qualified. They got their starts as clients of patron-politicians. (Fine; this is the same patronage system as every capital in the world). They flipped their (top) degrees and their political fealty into jobs when their patrons were out of office (NT at CAP; BD at Blackrock). Now they’ve flipped those off-cycle jobs into something bigger. I’m sure there were a lot of competitors. But being the client of a big patron does not make them qualified for highly technical jobs in economic management. Does anyone think NT can evaluate the thousands of competing Fed budget proposals that she will get at OMB ? Does anyone think Deese can evaluate the least cost decarbonization path ? Can the two of them arbitrate among the many options to recover from COVID ? They got where they are because of their political connections and that’s a reality for both parties and in every bureacuracy on the planet. (I mean, look at the dullard Malpass at the WB). But that does not give them knowledge and skills that they dont really have. If you really have to give them a job in the B-H admin for some reason, then they’re both lawyers and they can do something at Justice. The Dems were supposed to be better than this kind of rubbish, which is really not very different from appointing Jared and Ivanka.
Thanks for your comment. With all due respect, if you don’t see any significant difference between Jared and Ivanka on the one hand, and the Deeses and Tandens of the world, I’m not sure there’s much of anything I could say to change your mind.
Deese and Tanden, in addition to their legal degrees (side note: law is a profession that trains its practitioners to think about a question from multiple perspectives, a useful habit of mind for anyone in politics), have whatever variety of political experience (in government, in campaigns, in think tanks, etc.) they have *which is more than could be said for Jared and/or Ivanka*, whose experience largely consists of working in a family business that is a money laundering front for the mob.
Old democratic socialists like Bernard Crick (“In Defence of Politics”) and Garry Wills (“Confessions of a Conservative”) are useful reading these days on the importance of politics, and the importance of making politics work.
Fair enough, I withdraw “, which is really not very different from appointing Jared & Ivanka.”
But BD and NT are just not qualified for these specific jobs. They have no quant skills, no project experience, and no major management experience.
Look again at my questions — “Does anyone think NT can evaluate the thousands of competing Fed budget proposals that she will get at OMB ? Does anyone think Deese can evaluate the least cost decarbonization path ? Can the two of them arbitrate among the many options to recover from COVID ? Are they going to define federal support to primary education post deVos ? Are they going to define an optimal student debt reduction ?
Take the phone book of the World Bank or the IMF and you can find 20 senior Americans (and, if you want, they can all be women) who have those skills who could do those jobs but who are not career gophers of ex-Presidents and candidates, hence they’re not considered.
And as far as lawyers being trained to “think about a question from multiple perspectives”, I present you what Neil Katyal was doing today (defending slavery at SCOTUS). If NT and BD are such great lawyers — and who knows ? but it seems they haven’t practiced much law, AFAICT — then there will be plenty of good jobs in the B-H DoJ chasing the crimes of the Trump admin.
Thanks for your response. First, let’s stipulate there are dozens, maybe hundreds or even thousands, of people who are qualified to do the jobs Tanden and Deese are being hired for.
Second, the jobs they’ll be doing are fundamentally (small ‘p’) political jobs. They’ll be working for the president at the intersection of governance, policy, personnel, and politics. What matters is that they’re good at that kind of work. If it turns out they’re not good at the job, then Biden will fire them and hire someone else. (After all, in a nation of 300 million, being “one in a million” means there are 299 other people just as good as you are.)
Looking at your questions, neither Tanden nor Deese nor anybody else is going to have the technical and policy knowledge “least cost decarbonization parth” *and* “options to recover from COVID” *and* “federal support to primary education” *and* “optimal student debt reduction”…let along the thousands of other highly specific, highly technical, highly specialized decisions that will come across their desks.
But that’s not the job. The job is gathering reliable information and data, leading robust and relatively open debate about the options, and presenting those fairly to the president for decisions on the most important matters.
I don’t care much about Deese. I am pretty hopeful Republicans will be able to block Tanden. I’d rather focus on keeping that fucker Emmanuel out.
I regret nothing about TPP. Obama shouldn’t have supported exporting our hideous (Europe os mich worse) IP regime to those countries. Everyone has their issue and IP is mine.
Block Tandem and get someone more progressive. Derp!
I don’t care particularly much about her ideology. If she starts going catfood commision on us that can be fought. Did it under Bush and Obama.
It’s about slagging on Bernie and being loyal to Hilaryland to this day. The Clintons are a good representation of everything wrong with the Democratic party.
Thanks for your comments. If Biden’s going to be successful, he’s going to need the support of “Hillaryland” and of “Bernieland” and of the other factions that make up the Democratic coalition.
No need to put Hillaryland in quotes, that’s what they called themselves. It’s not a term I made up. Tanden was an actual member.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillaryland
And considering he’s hiring a bunch of center left folks with Obama legacies already (many of who already had Clinton legacies), they are already getting a strong influence on policy. No need for people who put personal loyalty to HRC at a premium.
IMO, the catfood commission got WAYYYY too much attention AFTER the moment had passed. It was important to shoot it down and make clear there would be no compromises or cuts to SS and MC, but I also don’t believe the Obama administration had any serious ideas of doing so – they simply appointed a bunch of deficit peacocks to a committee to make sure they have a “voice” because 2010 was full of bad political decisions by the Obama team to succor to Republican optics because the Blue Dogs and moderate Dems in the House were really feeling the pinch from the Tea Party and the coming red wave.
It was dumb, but it was not serious, and I can think of very few people who emerged from that bloodbath and continued to think that sopping to this mentality had any real benefits. The years of the sequester following that election also solidified how insane it is, and I’m hoping that the current make up of the House prevents Pelosi from passing another idiotic Paygo bill as the last vestiges of the moderates are whittled down again.
Sorry, rant over. I just hate hearing knowledgable lefties treat the Catfood Comission as if it was an actual Obama priority list rather than a hostage taking operation by the Blue Dogs who lost half of their seats for the effort, and were halved again in 2012.
And it took Trump to prove beyond a doubt that deficits and debt are fundamentally stupid arguments for nearly everything, not all but damn near. But I suppose the dems had to appeal to the blue dog idiots. And now we still have to deal with Nancy, Joe and Paygo, such fools.
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How many new members did The Squad gain in this last election? Zero? And how many states did they help us win? Would that also be zero? Their biggest effect was contributing to the loss of Florida.
Have progressives heard of this guy Mitch McConnell? How about Joe Manchin? If we lose the GA races Mitch McConnell decides who does and does not get congressional approval, and if we win both GA races, Joe Manchin will have a veto.
If any slight progress is to be made on climate change, race or immigration, we’re going to need to knock off the progressive purity testing and get realistic about the only thing that matters in Washington: power. Mitch has power. Joe has power. Progressives not so much.
Seems to me not only the Squad got zippo but the dems in general. And here some thought they would all gain. So what happened?
I’m pretty sure Cori Bush is squad in all but name. Rashida Tlaib also contributed to roughly 50k more votes in her district for Biden in 2020 than HRC in 2016. How many states did Spanberger and Slotkin help us win?
Cook has Spanberger’s district at R+6. Slotkin’s district is R+4. Tlaib’s district is D+32. Ms. Bush’s district is D+29. (BTW AOC’s district is also D+29).
So, congrats to Rep. Tlaib and Rep. Bush, but a Labrador Retriever with a D after its name could carry either district.. So far Progressives are great at beating other Democrats in ultra-safe districts. They have shown zero capacity even to pick up a D+5 let alone and R+anything.
You asked how many members the squad added. I suggested at least 1.
You asked what states they helped win. I said Michigan. Stop moving the goal posts.
You said their biggest effect was helping lose Florida which is either wrong or dishonest.
Actually I started by saying progressives were weak as kittens and there’s no particular reason to listen to them.
There is no proof that Rep. Tlaib is somehow responsible for an extra 50K votes, indeed that’s an unprovable assertion. You say Cori Bush is squad in all but name. OK. She won a safe district that would have been won by any Democrat. Good for her, I hope she does well. But that doesn’t tell us anything but that sometimes a progressive Dem can beat a liberal Dem in a bright blue district.
As for Florida, the FL party is a disaster, and yet the party was in no better shape when Miami-Dade reliably turned out a massive haul of votes. Votes that went away this time because too many Floridians are terrified by the ‘S’ word.
Bush successfully primaried a sitting Congressperson, but okay.
LOL!! Okay, sport. It wasn’t progressives who were wiped out. Every time we’re told we must bow and genuflect to Blue Dogs and every time they’re the ones who get wiped out because they stand for nothing, besides being corporate licksplitles.
Did Bowman join The Squad too? Because his tweets make it sound that way.