0:00

I'm Dan Kurtz-Felen and

0:02

this is the Foreign

0:04

Affairs interview. If you

0:06

look at the core things that

0:08

Biden was trying to accomplish, more

0:10

investment in infrastructure, we ended up

0:13

with less. Expanding the child tax

0:15

credit, it ended up smaller in

0:17

purchasing power. Raising the minimum wage,

0:19

it ended up smaller in purchasing

0:22

power. So inflation really went to

0:24

the heart and core and undermine

0:26

a lot of what otherwise might

0:29

have been accomplished. From

0:31

record-low unemployment to strong GDP growth,

0:33

the Biden administration presided over what

0:35

appeared to be a strong economic

0:37

recovery in the aftermath of the

0:40

pandemic. But these measures masked a

0:42

more complex reality, argues Jason Furman

0:44

in a new essay in foreign

0:46

affairs, and that reality in Furman's

0:49

view should reshape debates about

0:51

economic strategies going forward. Furman,

0:53

now a professor at Harvard, chaired

0:55

the White House Council of Economic

0:57

Advisors under President Obama. He traces

1:00

a stark disconnect between Biden's lofty

1:02

goals and real economic performance, especially

1:04

as it shaped voters' lived experience.

1:06

And that disconnect opened the way

1:09

for Donald Trump's return to the

1:11

White House. I spoke with Furman

1:13

about why the Biden administration's economic

1:15

policy fell short and why both

1:17

Democrats and Republicans should abandon what

1:20

he calls their post-neoliberal delusion.

1:27

Jason, thank you for the trench in

1:29

and provocative new essay. It's called the

1:31

post-neoliberal delusion and the tragedy of Bidenomics.

1:33

And thanks to all for joining me

1:36

today. Thanks for having me and thanks

1:38

for publishing the piece. The piece is,

1:40

as the title suggests, a fairly harsh

1:42

assessment of the Biden administration's economic policy,

1:44

but it's also, I think, a warning

1:47

about where things are headed now, both

1:49

under Trump and also. an intervention in

1:51

a way in a kind of just

1:53

beginning, intellectual and political battle about the

1:56

future of economic policy and especially among

1:58

Democrats and on the left. to all

2:00

of those dimensions of the piece in the argument,

2:02

but I want to start actually somewhat broader.

2:04

The piece is, of course, very critical and persuasively

2:06

so on lots of key issues. But for all

2:09

the agitation and concern about our politics and

2:11

the current administration and the grim assessment about the

2:13

state of the US economy, you hear from a

2:15

lot of Americans and that we certainly heard in

2:17

the context of the last presidential campaign, when you

2:20

do step back and consider the United States

2:22

in a global context, there is a sense that

2:24

it's doing pretty well economically actually, maybe kind of

2:26

singularly well. If you look at percentage of

2:28

global GDP that it represents, that is essentially unchanged

2:30

from the kind of height of you know, polarity

2:33

in the 1990s, kind of dominance of tech

2:35

companies and innovation. the comparison to other developed economies

2:37

and especially Europe, the stagnating Chinese economy, you know,

2:39

so when you step back and you see

2:41

the remarkable performance of the US in many ways,

2:43

that's a bigger story across the last three administrations.

2:46

I mean, what does that kind of macro account

2:48

get right or wrong as you look at the

2:50

details in this piece? Yeah, so I agree

2:52

with everything you just said. I would rather have

2:55

the US economy than any other economy in the

2:57

world. We have... better productivity growth than most

2:59

any other advanced economy. We have more favorable demography.

3:01

And we've also had a strong inflow of immigrants

3:03

attracted to the United States. I think you're

3:05

also right to highlight that that goes across three

3:08

administrations. That wasn't some sort of inflection point that

3:10

happened in the last couple of years. If

3:12

you sat in the economy in 2019 and looked

3:14

at the growth rate in the three years before,

3:16

where you sit in the year 2025 and look

3:19

at the growth rate in three years before, they're

3:21

quite similar. quite similar overall growth, quite similar

3:23

productivity growth, one of them Trump is president, on

3:25

the other one Biden is president. So I think

3:27

that does tell you something structural about the

3:29

US economy. And then there's an important question, what

3:32

can you do to nurture and advance that, or

3:34

at least not get in the way of

3:36

it, you know, versus you do that risks all

3:38

of the progress that we've made. And just to

3:40

focus on that risk before we get to

3:42

the piece, as you see the fairly astonishing early

3:45

moves from the Trump administration over the first few

3:47

weeks since he took office, is there anything

3:49

in there that you think represents a risk that

3:51

could kind of compromise again that record over

3:53

several administrations? Yeah, I think trade restrictions really... There's

3:55

a static way of modeling them through comparative advantage.

3:58

It misses out the trade is very closely

4:00

related to innovation, both because of the competition that

4:02

comes from trade, the specialization, the learning from doing

4:04

that you get with scale, and so all

4:06

of that affects productivity. The uncertainty we've seen may

4:08

cause some pullback in business investment. higher interest rates,

4:11

which we could get as a result of

4:13

all of this, reduces some speculative activity, and then

4:15

immigration and science also are absolutely key. So yes,

4:17

I look at what I'm seeing right now

4:19

and worry not that it's going to cause a

4:21

recession in the next quarter, but much more what

4:24

it will do to our productivity growth or labor

4:26

force growth over the medium and longer term. Let

4:28

me turn to the piece. As you note

4:30

early on in the essay, the Biden team was

4:32

in many ways starting with a critique of a

4:35

previous economic policy paradigm that's often called derisively

4:37

neoliberalism. When you look at the critique that was

4:39

one of the kind of core assumptions of Bidenomics

4:41

as you see it, how would you first

4:43

of all just characterize that critique? And then when

4:45

you think about it, what does it get right

4:48

and wrong when you look back at that

4:50

record over several administrations prior to the Biden? Yeah,

4:52

so the post neoliberal critique, I think at its

4:54

heart, was skeptical about notions of scarcity and

4:56

budget constraints, thought that economic analysis sort of

4:58

nickel and dime things

5:00

by putting those front and

5:03

center, and that if

5:05

you went with something

5:07

that was more of a

5:09

combined economics and politics,

5:11

that you could unleash

5:13

a greater set of ambition.

5:16

And then there's a

5:18

specific set of things

5:20

that could be a hot

5:22

economy for the macroeconomy,

5:24

industrial policy that doesn't

5:27

place markets at the center,

5:29

climate change through something

5:31

like a Green New Deal

5:33

rather than through market

5:36

mechanisms like cap and

5:38

trade. And all of these

5:40

were supposed to be

5:42

ways of doing things

5:44

that were better, that were

5:46

larger scale, and that

5:49

also were more politically

5:51

doable and politically durable. And

5:53

the Biden people would

5:55

say, and often did

5:57

say quite explicitly, that they

5:59

were making up for

6:02

the failures of two

6:04

previous Democratic administrations. You served

6:06

in both of those

6:08

in a more junior

6:10

role, or junior roles in

6:12

the Clinton administration, and

6:14

in quite senior roles

6:17

in the Obama administration, the

6:19

Biden people would say

6:21

that got us the

6:23

financial crisis, and then a

6:25

fairly slow recovery, the

6:27

gutting of manufacturing base,

6:30

and the political reaction that

6:32

in their analysis got

6:34

us Trump the first

6:36

time around. It doesn't seem

6:38

accidental, a lot of

6:41

the people who were shaping

6:43

economic policy in the

6:45

Biden administration had been

6:47

part of the Obama administration

6:49

especially, and were very

6:51

cognizant of some of

6:54

the shortcomings of the Obama

6:56

policy. When you look

6:58

at those records, and

7:00

again that kind of critique

7:02

of in some parts

7:04

of this debate be

7:07

called the kind of neoliberal

7:09

record of those two

7:11

administrations, what do you

7:13

see is valid? What

7:15

are the parts of that

7:17

that you think get

7:20

the story right? In

7:22

what ways are we kind

7:24

of getting the diagnosis

7:26

wrong as we look

7:28

at those two administrations? Yeah,

7:30

so I've been upfront

7:33

that I think the

7:35

stimulus was insufficient during the

7:37

financial crisis, and that

7:39

contributed to the slow

7:41

recovery. I think that was

7:43

largely Congress's fault, and

7:46

that the president tried, and

7:48

that they reduced it.

7:50

I think within the

7:52

administration it was largely, insofar

7:54

as there was anyone

7:57

on the wrong side

7:59

of it, it was more

8:01

people coming at it

8:03

from the political end. which

8:05

I think people don't appreciate. Economists wanted bigger stimulus

8:08

and political people said, actually, that's really unpopular. And

8:10

the political people in some ways were doing

8:12

their job too. So I agree with that.

8:14

Again, we can debate sort of who said

8:16

what and did what when, but in terms

8:18

of economic policy, agree too little was

8:21

done. On trade, I'm of a more

8:23

mixed view. I think the literature on

8:25

things like the China shock dramatically over

8:27

states. the net impact that China

8:30

had. It had some reallocation impact,

8:32

but we were losing manufacturing jobs

8:34

at a much faster pace in

8:36

the 80s and 90s. If declining

8:38

manufacturing leads to populism, instead of

8:40

Ronald Reagan, we should have had

8:43

Donald Trump winning in the year

8:45

1980. So you have this explanation

8:47

that is almost equally true, if

8:49

not more true, decades ago than

8:51

now that people are... trotting out now.

8:54

So I don't think the decline

8:56

in manufacturing was primarily due to

8:58

those policies and the fact that it

9:00

continued under Trump and Biden helps

9:03

vindicate that view. But I think

9:05

it is possible that things like

9:07

the trans-specific partnership were good

9:09

policies. I defended them. I strongly

9:12

believe in that defense. It's possible

9:14

that they politically were more harmful

9:16

than good and that Maybe Obama and

9:18

his successors would have been better served

9:20

if we had put less effort into

9:23

that. That's a political question. I'm not

9:25

sure of the answer to. So I think

9:27

it's worth, as we get into this

9:29

conversation, by giving as kind of, you

9:32

know, straightforward and perhaps intellectually charitable as

9:34

possible a definition of by dynamics, as

9:36

you kind of saw the response they

9:38

put together that was based on that critique,

9:41

how would you characterize it in

9:43

its kind of basic strategy and

9:45

assumptions? I mean the tricky

9:47

thing with any president is

9:49

they're judged more for what

9:51

they got done than what they proposed.

9:54

So he proposed a set

9:56

of things related to

9:58

infrastructure and industrial

10:00

structure of the economy, and also

10:02

proposed a set of things related

10:04

to families and child tax credit.

10:07

And the first set of things

10:09

got done, and the second set

10:11

didn't. So does Bidenomics have both

10:13

of those? Because he wanted both

10:15

of them. Or should we think

10:17

of Bidenomics as only having the

10:19

former, the stuffed things, not the

10:21

latter, the people things? And an

10:23

awful lot of people who said

10:25

this is the most transformative president

10:27

since FDR were implicitly saying the

10:29

people's stuff actually didn't matter. The

10:31

big thing and important thing was

10:33

what was done on infrastructure and

10:35

industrial production. So I think it

10:38

probably is fair but not totally

10:40

unambiguous to say Bidenomics was about

10:42

big amounts of spending, running the

10:44

economy very hot, and trying to

10:46

redo the industrial structure, and instead

10:48

of emphasizing programs for people, emphasizing

10:50

what I would call stuff. and

10:52

approaching it with a certain intersectionality.

10:54

You can strengthen labor unions and

10:56

strengthen child care and have LGBTQ

10:58

protections in your job programs and

11:00

build more infrastructure and try to

11:02

do all of those things at

11:04

once. and to have in all

11:06

of those efforts a fairly heavy

11:08

role for public policy and for

11:11

government and shaping where investment went

11:13

and what regulations around different industries

11:15

were. I mean there was a

11:17

much more kind of sense of

11:19

government involvement as being a productive

11:21

force rather than the assumptions for

11:23

previous decades that it was that

11:25

best had a mixed record or

11:27

even a negative one. Yeah, and

11:29

look, there's a lot of continuity.

11:31

Bill Clinton said the error of

11:33

big government is over, but he,

11:35

you know, expanded government in various

11:37

ways and contracted government in other

11:39

ways. So part of the difference

11:42

is rhetorical. There was no big

11:44

government is over type of language

11:46

coming out of President Biden. But

11:48

part of it, I do think,

11:50

is real, and it reflected a

11:52

skepticism about the primacy of. markets

11:54

and a skepticism of the idea

11:56

that we should identify market failures

11:58

and solve them, which I think

12:00

is the rhetorical frame that economists

12:02

use and to some degree was

12:04

used more in previous administrations and

12:06

instead started from the premise, you

12:08

know, we're going to start in

12:10

a different way. Defenders of the

12:13

administration would note that there have

12:15

been some fairly remarkable things about

12:17

the economic record of this administration

12:19

and you too grant in the

12:21

piece that quoting you here, the

12:23

macro economic outcomes have been impressive.

12:25

the year's economy is bounced back

12:27

much faster than it did after

12:29

previous recessions. Was that a reflection

12:31

of kind of structural strengths of

12:33

the economy or were there parts

12:35

of the Biden policy especially early

12:37

on that you think account for

12:39

that quicker recovery? I think the

12:41

2020 policies, both fiscal policies and

12:43

monetary, were absolutely essential ingredients to

12:46

that recovery. They both helped keep

12:48

the economy and financial system together

12:50

and gave people a lot of

12:52

extra money so that when the

12:54

economy reopened, they would be in

12:56

a position to spend it. I

12:58

am not at all convinced that

13:00

the big stimulus in March 2021

13:02

was really needed. Lots of other

13:04

countries did not do another round

13:06

then. They also recovered very quickly.

13:08

On the employment side, many of

13:10

them recovered even more quickly than

13:12

the United States did. The economy

13:14

was growing very quickly even before

13:17

that stimulus plan. passed and there

13:19

was all this dry powder, bank

13:21

accounts were higher than they ever

13:23

been, credit card debt, you know,

13:25

lower. So I just don't think,

13:27

looking back at it, that much

13:29

if any of it was necessary.

13:31

So much of what's damning in

13:33

the record and in the details

13:35

you that in the piece comes

13:37

down of course to inflation You

13:39

note that beginning in 2021 is

13:41

the country recovered from the pandemic

13:43

the country experienced the most sustained

13:45

inflation since the early 1980s and

13:47

the inflation rate soared from around

13:50

2% to high of 9% and

13:52

the price level, the average price

13:54

of all goods and services, rose

13:56

by about 20% over four years.

13:58

you know, there are so many

14:00

details in this piece that kind

14:02

of make clear the toll of

14:04

that, whether it's on the lack

14:06

of real wage growth over those

14:08

years, the fact that the child

14:10

tax credit actually, you know, collapsed

14:12

over the course of the Biden

14:14

administration when you look at the

14:16

effects of inflation. And then the

14:18

most kind of, I think, remarkable

14:21

figure is that even though there

14:23

was this enormous and long sought

14:25

bipartisan infrastructure bill because of inflation.

14:27

Exactly. People think of inflation as

14:29

taking this political toll, and it

14:31

certainly did. It also took a

14:33

toll on workers. But if you

14:35

look at the core things that

14:37

Biden was trying to accomplish, more

14:39

investment in infrastructure. we ended up

14:41

with less. Expanding the child tax

14:43

credit, it ended up smaller in

14:45

purchasing power. Raising the minimum wage,

14:47

it ended up smaller in purchasing

14:49

power. There's a lot of government,

14:52

by the way, that also was

14:54

shrunk in real terms as well.

14:56

So inflation really went to the

14:58

heart and core and undermined a

15:00

lot of what otherwise might have

15:02

been accomplished. So the defenders of

15:04

the administration during the administration and

15:06

still will point to the global

15:08

comparisons and note that inflation has

15:10

been high in developed economies all

15:12

across the globe. Could be that

15:14

part of the reason why Kamala

15:16

Harris did better than, you know,

15:18

incumbents or representatives and combat parties

15:20

elsewhere is that inflation did that

15:22

come down much more in the

15:25

United States than it did in

15:27

other advanced democracies. You know, and

15:29

you can point to lots of

15:31

reasons why. That would be a

15:33

global problem, whether it's supply chain

15:35

snarls and the just kind of

15:37

weirdness of COVID in the post-COVID

15:39

recovery. And then of course Ukraine

15:41

and what that did to energy

15:43

prices especially, you were skeptical that

15:45

there is a kind of global

15:47

story that absolves the administration. Why

15:49

is that? Yeah. So first of

15:51

all, I think some people are

15:53

pretty selective. They use international. evidence

15:56

to say, oh, inflation wasn't US

15:58

fault because it happened everywhere. But

16:00

then they don't look at the

16:02

international evidence on all the other

16:04

economies recovered quickly too to say,

16:06

well, maybe it wasn't the United

16:08

States that made the recovery so

16:10

fast. So people need to be

16:12

careful. Related to that is everything

16:14

good that happened is because of

16:16

policy. Everything that bad that happened

16:18

is bad luck that has nothing

16:20

to do with policy. So you

16:22

have to be. a little bit

16:24

careful about being consistent about it.

16:27

In terms of the international comparison

16:29

on inflation, first of all, I

16:31

just have never ever heard anyone

16:33

say that the Great Depression wasn't

16:35

partly the fault of US policy

16:37

makers, just because there was a

16:39

depression somewhere else, or that the

16:41

financial crisis in Great Recession had

16:43

nothing to do with American policymakers

16:45

because they had it elsewhere. So

16:47

I just had never heard that

16:49

argument before, for some reason it

16:51

gets made quite a lot here.

16:53

The second thing to say is

16:55

everyone did overstimulate to some degree.

16:57

If you look in Europe they

17:00

largely kept real disposal personal income

17:02

on the same track it was

17:04

on before in economies that were

17:06

incapable of producing enough to satisfy

17:08

that income. In the United States

17:10

we actually raised real disposable personal

17:12

income. So everyone did too much.

17:14

And then the shock that hit

17:16

the rest of the world was

17:18

much larger than the shock that

17:20

hit the United States. Natural gas

17:22

prices went up to $100 per

17:24

million BTU in Europe. That's sort

17:26

of like if oil prices went

17:28

up to maybe $800 a barrel

17:31

here, if that had happened, I

17:33

think a lot of people would

17:35

say like, hey, the inflation we're

17:37

getting is because of the $800

17:39

barrel oil, and they'd be right.

17:41

So just so I understand that

17:43

point about the comparison to the

17:45

Great Depression and the financial prices.

17:47

Part of global inflation was a

17:49

result of American policy, whether that

17:51

was monetary policy or stimulus money.

17:53

Yeah, that's also an important part

17:55

of it. So you look at

17:57

something like durable good spending. That

17:59

went up a lot in the

18:01

United States. States in 2021, 30%

18:04

above what it was before COVID,

18:06

you don't see an increase like

18:08

that at all in Europe. And

18:10

goods prices are set globally. So

18:12

US demand for goods goes up,

18:14

it raises the goods prices in

18:16

the entire world, also strengthened the

18:18

dollar, which exports some of the

18:20

inflation from the United States abroad.

18:23

So you focus on two major policy mistakes as

18:25

you see it that drove inflation. The first is

18:27

the American rescue plan, the big stimulus package that

18:29

Congress passed in early 2021. you think that should

18:31

have been something like six or seven hundred billion

18:33

dollars instead of one point nine trillion as it

18:35

was you also mentioned the Fed moving too slowly

18:37

to address inflation through interest rates I think it

18:39

waited until March 2022 if I have those dates

18:41

right when the spike started you know several months

18:43

before that in 2021 how do you tease apart

18:45

those two causes which do you think bears more

18:47

blame and you know since the pieces of course

18:49

focused on the administration how much was Fed policy

18:51

the real problem? I think the Fed's mistake in

18:53

some sense was more egregious and unforgivable, but less

18:55

consequential than the administration's mistake. Why is it more

18:57

egregious and unforgivable? Well, the administration made a mistake

18:59

in March of 2021. I think it was a

19:01

knowable mistake at the time, but COVID was surging,

19:04

plus fiscal policy always has a large dose of

19:06

politics. The Fed made the mistake over and over

19:08

and over again, even as the data became clearer,

19:10

and they have a lot of PhDs and not

19:12

a lot of politicians in their rank. So I

19:14

do think it's harder to explain what the Fed

19:16

did. It also is the case once that amount

19:18

of money was sloshing around in the economy, even

19:20

starting to raise interest rates in the summer of

19:22

2021, I don't think would have put a whole

19:24

lot of dent in the inflation that ensued. Let

19:26

me focus on the counterfactual with one more question.

19:28

If you'd been, you know, your old

19:30

job as chair of

19:32

the Council of Economic Advisors

19:34

or at the National

19:36

Economic Council or Treasury Secretary,

19:38

all of those rolled

19:40

into one. What policy options

19:42

do you think there

19:44

were that would have gotten

19:46

a better outcome inflation

19:48

that the Biden administration didn't

19:50

use? Obviously there's the

19:52

rescue plan, but are there

19:54

other things that you

19:56

think could and should have

19:58

been done that would

20:00

have gotten us a dramatically

20:02

different outcome? So after

20:05

the rescue plan, they got

20:07

the most important thing

20:09

right, which was appointing good

20:11

people to the Fed

20:13

and really having the feds

20:15

back. And that's not

20:17

easy. The Fed was raising

20:19

interest rates really aggressively.

20:21

A lot of presidents would

20:23

have been complaining about

20:25

it. They didn't. So they

20:27

got that right. The

20:29

second thing was on supply

20:31

chains. They did some

20:33

things to help make them

20:35

better, but they also

20:37

did some other things at

20:39

the same time to

20:41

make them worse and make

20:43

them more complicated. And

20:45

finally, they had a big

20:47

internal debate about whether

20:49

to lower tariffs, especially the

20:51

ones that President Trump

20:53

had imposed on China, that

20:55

would have taken a

20:57

couple of tents off the

20:59

inflation rate, and every

21:01

10th matters. So that was,

21:04

to me, a missed

21:06

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22:13

today. And now back to my

22:15

conversation with Jason Furman. So

22:17

I'm going to come back to

22:20

the tariffs question because that is

22:22

of course so central to... economic policy

22:24

now under the Trump administration, but to

22:26

linger on another part of Bidenomics, and

22:29

I think this is stretched again across

22:31

multiple administrations, and there's a kind of

22:33

gap between what you hear from many

22:35

economists and what you hear from most

22:38

policymakers and politicians on this, and that

22:40

is around the focus on manufacturing and

22:42

the erosion, the manufacturing base. in the

22:44

United States, you know, Joe Biden said,

22:47

as you noted in the piece, that

22:49

rebuilding the backbone of America, manufacturing, unions

22:51

in the middle class would be one

22:53

of his administration's main goals. And you

22:55

note that this kind of hope for

22:57

manufacturing renaissance just did not happen, even

23:00

though there was in fact a lot

23:02

of effort in several legislatively successful initiatives

23:04

that were meant to drive that. What

23:06

was the result and why did it

23:08

did not get us the outcome that

23:10

Joe Biden said he was focused on

23:12

at the beginning of the administration? Yeah,

23:14

so first of all, there's a question

23:16

of whether you should want more manufacturing.

23:19

I think there is an argument for

23:21

it in certain key sectors

23:23

that are important for our

23:25

national security, so I support

23:27

it in semiconductors, but not across

23:29

the board as a middle class job

23:32

strategy or something like that. But the

23:34

big issue was crowd out. It's just

23:36

a standard economic concept that I teach

23:38

in my class. And the issue is

23:40

if you subsidize a favored sector, You

23:43

get more stuff in that sector and

23:45

they have a lot to point

23:47

to in terms of microchip fabs

23:49

being built and clean

23:51

energy production and the like, but

23:54

you also get higher interest

23:56

rates and higher construction costs

23:58

and a strong... dollar, all

24:00

of which hurts every other sector

24:02

of manufacturing that didn't get the

24:04

subsidies. And so what you've seen

24:06

is in some ways almost a

24:08

little bit like the China shock,

24:10

things that got a benefit are

24:12

growing, other things are atrophying, there's

24:15

more turnover. In this case, some

24:17

of that turnover is a good

24:19

thing because it's tilting us more

24:21

towards things that are important for

24:23

our national security, even if they

24:25

actually aren't the highest value added.

24:27

productive parts of the economy. Microchip

24:29

fabrication is actually not that important

24:31

and productive a thing economically, but

24:33

it's important for national security. But

24:35

at the same time, there's just

24:37

been all this turnover that it's

24:39

caused and churn and crowd out

24:41

and I felt some of that

24:43

was minimized. And by the way,

24:45

it's okay with me if politicians

24:47

aren't totally frank in public about

24:49

tradeoffs. I get worried when people

24:51

in private don't seem to understand

24:53

them. and take them fully into

24:55

account because that's when I think

24:58

you might get the wrong answers

25:00

coming out. And there you mean

25:02

you think the kind of economic

25:04

policy makers had fooled themselves to

25:06

some degree? What's the critique there?

25:08

Yeah, so I think like take

25:10

something like climate change. Carbon tax

25:12

and I am not regrudging that

25:14

they couldn't pass a carbon tax.

25:16

I think that was a political

25:18

constraint, but a carbon tax you

25:20

can take the revenue and give

25:22

it to households, maybe give it

25:24

in a lump sum manner and

25:26

it's a very progressive policy thing.

25:28

There are a lot of people

25:30

that fold themselves into thinking that

25:32

giving out subsidies to corporations is

25:34

somehow progressive. No, it's not. That

25:36

might be a good way to

25:39

reduce carbon emissions politically, although it's

25:41

limited in terms of scale, but

25:43

it's worth doing. But you should

25:45

be a little bit haunted by

25:47

the fact that you're giving a

25:49

lot of money to companies. A

25:51

lot of that is going as

25:53

shareholders. Most people who are affected

25:55

by it aren't getting any of

25:57

the money because it's just a

25:59

few lucky people that end up

26:01

with the jobs and don't build

26:03

a whole economic philosophy around our

26:05

climate plan is a green new

26:07

deal that's creating middle class jobs

26:09

when it's not and it's not

26:11

a great way to go about

26:13

creating them. The national security cases

26:15

I think become very very central

26:17

to this discussion at least as

26:19

we see it at foreign affairs.

26:22

That tends to be an argument

26:24

for much of the focus on

26:26

the manufacturing base, on you know

26:28

kind of supply chain security and

26:30

resiliency. How do you circumscribe that

26:32

in the right way. I mean,

26:34

it's very easy to take almost

26:36

anything and claim that it's essential

26:38

to our national security and you

26:40

often see industries making that case

26:42

for their own economic reasons. How

26:44

would you as a policymaker define

26:46

that in the right way? And

26:48

what kind of counts as real

26:50

national security? I think this is

26:52

a really tricky and important issue.

26:54

And some of the best stuff

26:56

I've read about it is in

26:58

foreign affairs. And it's something that

27:00

academics actually are behind on. and

27:03

need to do more work about

27:05

how to combine economic and national

27:07

security considerations. I personally don't know

27:09

exactly where to draw the line,

27:11

but the type of thinking I'm

27:13

comfortable with is cost-benefit thinking. So

27:15

you see that with Russia sanctions.

27:17

We put sanctions on Russia. No

27:19

one said that was going to

27:21

strengthen the American middle class or

27:23

return manufacturing to America or increase

27:25

economic growth. We all understood that

27:27

we were paying a cost by

27:29

putting sanctions on Russia, and then

27:31

we understood that it had a

27:33

national security benefit, and I think

27:35

quite reasonably, the benefit outweighed that

27:37

cost. That's the way I see

27:39

it in these other domains as

27:41

well. If you're trying to get

27:43

lower value-added industries like ship fabrication,

27:46

as opposed to what Invidia does,

27:48

which is chip design, or what

27:50

Apple does, which is beginning to

27:52

end design to marketing, Invidia and

27:54

Apple are much higher value added.

27:56

From an economic perspective, they're the

27:58

type of companies you want in

28:00

the United States, not FoxCon and

28:02

TSMC, and what they do with

28:04

assembling phones and fabrication. microchips, but

28:06

absolutely I think there's an important

28:08

national security reason to have those.

28:10

And the conversations that I find

28:12

most persuasive are ones that acknowledge

28:14

and recognize that these are actually

28:16

lower value added, they're less productive,

28:18

they're not a great way to

28:20

create jobs in America, but it's

28:22

worth the cost, just like our

28:24

defense budget. No one argues or...

28:27

No one that I respect would

28:29

argue our defense budget is a

28:31

great way to create jobs or

28:33

a great source of utility for

28:35

Americans. We do it to serve

28:37

another purpose. So people that have

28:39

a realistic sense of the costs

28:41

and a realistic sense of the

28:43

benefits. and then can be in

28:45

a conversation about how to trade

28:47

them off against each other, that's

28:49

the conversation I'd like to see

28:51

more of. I'm simply admiring the

28:53

problem here, but that becomes very

28:55

complicated, I think, when it gets

28:57

to the question of the US-Chinese

28:59

economic relationship where someone can paint

29:01

a scenario where China is trying

29:03

to deter the United States from

29:05

intervening in the Taiwan Strait in

29:07

a war. and cutting off the

29:10

supply of whatever import that is

29:12

critical to our economic functioning, even

29:14

if it doesn't really matter for

29:16

the defense industrial base, becomes an

29:18

economic threat. You know, I see

29:20

how you kind of get to

29:22

decoupling with China quite quickly once

29:24

you follow that logic. And again,

29:26

I don't know exactly where you

29:28

try that line, but it seems

29:30

very challenging. It's a challenging line

29:32

to draw, but one, I'm more

29:34

comfortable people drawing it who recognize

29:36

that the economic benefits and gains

29:38

from trade with China are just

29:40

massive. for the United States. And

29:42

second, from a national security perspective,

29:44

we don't just want to reduce

29:46

the risk we face if China

29:48

cuts us off. We also want

29:50

to reduce the chances that China

29:53

cuts us off, the chances that

29:55

China invades Taiwan. And sometimes I

29:57

look at some of these steps,

29:59

and this is way outside my

30:01

lane, and worry that yes, if

30:03

there is a military conflict, we've

30:05

degraded China a tiny bit, but

30:07

we've also increased the chances of

30:09

that conflict and net net. that

30:11

may not make us safer. One

30:13

thing you did not mention in

30:15

the piece that was very central

30:17

to the presidential campaign and I

30:19

think had probably. positive economic effects

30:21

or I guess that you would

30:23

say they have positive economic effects

30:25

but had pretty damaging political effects

30:27

was of course the politics of

30:29

migration and the surge of immigrants

30:31

after the end of COVID. How

30:34

do you kind of see the

30:36

the cost benefit there if we

30:38

can think about it in that

30:40

sense? There were surely effects on

30:42

inflation or productivity and demographics that

30:44

were quite positive in the United

30:46

States because of that search of

30:48

inflation. Yeah, so I've written about

30:50

and analyzed the immigration surge and

30:52

what that means for the economy

30:54

elsewhere didn't fit in this piece

30:56

because the editors would only... give

30:58

me so many words. Plus it

31:00

didn't seem like a deliberate economic

31:02

strategy, even if it was incredibly

31:04

consequential economically. United States had probably

31:06

about 10 million people that came

31:08

during this period of time that

31:10

increased our potential economic growth. It

31:12

enabled us to grow faster without

31:14

inflation. I don't think it brought

31:17

inflation down because it increased both

31:19

supply and demand and think did

31:21

it roughly in equal measure. There's

31:23

other people who have a different

31:25

view of that, but I think

31:27

I'm right and they're wrong, but

31:29

who knows it's worth debating. The

31:31

issue was a bunch of that

31:33

immigration was not legal and a

31:35

bunch of it wasn't something that

31:37

the American people seemed super enthusiastic

31:39

about and want to happen. And

31:41

so here, once again, we care

31:43

about multiple things. If all you

31:45

cared about was GDP, or the

31:47

power of the United States, which

31:49

depends on the aggregate amount of

31:51

GDP, then the more immigrants the

31:53

better. But people also care about

31:55

the rule of law, the sense

31:58

of whether their country has things

32:00

under control or not, and having

32:02

a better combination of the two

32:04

of those would be wonderful to

32:06

have. Of course, it would take

32:08

legislation that I don't think would

32:10

have been possible to pass in

32:12

the last four years and will

32:14

be even harder on the next

32:16

four. tariffs, so Trump is obviously

32:18

using a much more broadly and

32:20

recklessly and often without very clear

32:22

rationale, and Biden was much more

32:24

targeted. But the administration did, as

32:26

you know, to keep the tariffs

32:28

on China mostly in place and

32:30

was not exactly eager to pursue

32:32

new free trade policies, new for

32:34

trade agreements. This is kind of

32:36

fascinating dynamic where, you know, there's

32:38

a just incredible gap between what

32:41

you hear from economists, even progressive

32:43

economists. and what you hear from

32:45

politicians and the policy makers around

32:47

tariffs. There's this kind of consensus

32:49

among most economists that they have

32:51

some, you know, limited utility, but

32:53

not nearly utility that policymakers think,

32:55

and then, of course, administration after

32:57

administration, you know, resorts to them.

32:59

What explains that gap? How do

33:01

you think about that? You've been

33:03

in the room arguing about this

33:05

with multiple presidents. How do they

33:07

see it and why does that

33:09

kind of economic analysis not fully

33:11

persuade them? tariffs and trade are

33:13

pretty orthodox, unreconstructed enthusiasm for it

33:15

with a footnote for well-defined national

33:17

security deviations. Some of it's just

33:19

not superintuitive. The idea that a

33:21

trade deficit reflects an imbalance between

33:24

how much a country invests and

33:26

how much a country saves, that

33:28

is a proposition that is 100%

33:30

certain to be true. It's an

33:32

accounting identity. And so many people

33:34

just don't understand it and don't

33:36

understand the implications of it. The

33:38

fact that when you place a

33:40

tariff on imports, you are also

33:42

effectively taxing your exports, and you

33:44

end up both with less imports

33:46

and with less exports, that's something

33:48

that I am 99.9% sure is

33:50

true, and is barely apart. of

33:52

the political discussions. But more broadly,

33:54

just this mentality that, you know,

33:56

economists basically are almost more enthusiastic

33:58

about imports than export. Because we

34:00

think that's what people value and

34:02

want and exports are the painful

34:05

price you pay in order to

34:07

have those imports. And the political

34:09

system almost starts with exactly the

34:11

opposite. Imports were somehow taking advantage

34:13

of us and exports are the

34:15

thing that you really want. So

34:17

I don't have a great answer

34:19

to your question other than a

34:21

certain amount of despair, but economists

34:23

have been despairing about this for...

34:25

as long as they've been talking

34:27

about comparative advantage. I think it

34:29

was just yesterday that Trump signed

34:31

25% tariffs on all steel and

34:33

aluminum imports. A lot of those

34:35

come from very close American allies

34:37

and partners. I think Canada is

34:39

the biggest source of those imports,

34:41

but it's also Brazil and Japan

34:43

and Taiwan and lots of other

34:45

countries that are important to our

34:48

national security and kind of important

34:50

relationships. How do you expect the

34:52

kind of Trump trade policy in

34:54

the effects of those tariffs to

34:56

play up? economically bad

34:58

and national security bad. So to

35:00

me, it seems really lose, lose.

35:02

That, as you just noted, a

35:05

lot of these tariffs are falling

35:07

on our allies. You know, whether

35:09

steel comes from the United States

35:11

or comes from Canada, it's roughly

35:13

the same thing in terms of

35:16

US national security. It'll hurt downstream

35:18

manufacturing. So the industries that use

35:20

steel in their production, it'll... add

35:22

some to the inflationary pressures that

35:24

we face. And what I worry

35:27

about is that President Trump is

35:29

just getting started. This is in

35:31

his first couple weeks. He's already

35:33

done more than he did in

35:36

his first year and a half

35:38

as president last time around, and

35:40

a lot more could be coming.

35:42

And ultimately for him, you could

35:44

be charitable and steel man the

35:47

case for tariffs. I think the

35:49

proposition that he just loves tariffs

35:51

and thinks somehow... They'll help Americans

35:53

and hurt other people and just

35:55

deeply, deeply believes that. That's largely

35:58

the way to understand. them and

36:00

then everything else is in detail

36:02

in terms of how it manifests itself.

36:04

As you make sense of the early

36:07

reactions from other governments, do you

36:09

fear a kind of escalatory, retaliatory

36:11

cycle that would get us into

36:13

very kind of scary places in

36:15

terms of the international economy?

36:17

That's a risk, but there's also

36:19

the possibility that they'll be like

36:21

Canada and Mexico work, which we're

36:24

pretty smart, about offering very symbolic

36:26

concessions that I think their people

36:28

were okay with in their countries

36:30

and worked for President Trump. China

36:33

has not been very escalatory about

36:35

the whole process and you know

36:37

it's perfectly possible that all

36:39

of this ends up in a

36:42

more favorable settlement with China. I'm

36:44

skeptical. I'm skeptical in part because

36:46

I think President Trump is willing

36:48

to be effectively bought off with

36:51

symbolic things. Last time he got an

36:53

agreement to buy American stuff, I didn't

36:55

think that was that great an agreement

36:57

to start with, didn't think that would

36:59

be what we were trying to accomplish,

37:02

and regardless, they never really followed up,

37:04

and he never really called them on

37:06

it. So there's a range of possibilities

37:08

here, some of them are quite good,

37:10

but we're putting this instrument in the

37:12

hands of someone who genuinely believes in

37:14

them, and so broadly speaking, I think.

37:16

It's much more likely that bad comes

37:19

out of that than good. One of

37:21

the fascinating developments in American politics

37:23

over the last eight or nine years

37:25

is that both the Republican and

37:28

Democratic parties have turned against the

37:30

quote unquote neoliberal economic policies of

37:32

previous administrations. Are there ways in

37:34

which you see continuity in the

37:36

kind of basic thinking around these

37:39

questions between Biden and Trump that

37:41

go beyond just tariffs? I mean,

37:43

you know, economists have played a smaller role.

37:45

and both of those administrations.

37:48

And that's not just on

37:50

political things like trade. It's

37:52

also, you look at the

37:55

details of how the Affordable

37:57

Care Act was designed. lot

38:00

of economists both within the government and

38:02

outside at working on that. Now you

38:04

look at the IRA and climate, there

38:07

are a lot of economists who are

38:09

perfectly willing to say, hey, we can't

38:11

do a carbon tax, so let's get

38:14

the subsidies right. They didn't have a

38:16

lot of input. into the design of

38:18

the inflation reduction act. So even when

38:21

it comes to technocratic things, you know,

38:23

in both the Clinton and Obama administration,

38:25

there were excellent chief economists, the Labor

38:28

Department, and they did a lot of

38:30

evidence-based policy making when it came to

38:32

say training programs or whatever it is.

38:35

That's just not something you had in

38:37

the Trump or Biden administration. So just

38:39

less technocrats, less economists, and, you know.

38:41

Still a decent amount of them. I'm

38:44

not saying it's like from 100 to

38:46

zero. I'm not saying the two administrations

38:48

are the same But some of the

38:51

post neoliberalism and the populist nationalism Has

38:53

in common a sort of channel the

38:55

will of the people and not let

38:58

it be intermediated by a bunch of

39:00

annoying analysts One thing you noted in

39:02

the piece that was an additional sorts

39:05

of problems was the just kind of

39:07

obstacles to getting things done to really

39:09

expanding supply whether that's of houses or

39:12

of building new factories or developing clean

39:14

energy, building transmission lines in the United

39:16

States. I'm quoting you here, the administration's

39:19

laser-like focus on the demand side came

39:21

at the expense of addressing impediments to

39:23

supply such successive obstacles to permitting processes

39:26

related to building infrastructure. Do you see

39:28

some... upside some opportunity in the kind

39:30

of deregulatory agenda that seems to be

39:33

very front and center in the Trump

39:35

administration? Yeah, I mean, I sort of

39:37

wish we could have had democratic spending

39:39

on infrastructure and then like more Republicans

39:42

and certain of the agencies who are

39:44

willing to, you know, do what needed

39:46

to be done to implement it. And

39:49

yeah, infrastructure and investment depends not just

39:51

on amount the government spends, but on

39:53

a whole set of rules around them,

39:56

and the balance of those rules has

39:58

gone to a... pretty bad place and

40:00

everyone recognizes it. President Obama complained about

40:03

it, but we frankly didn't get much

40:05

of it done because I'd go into

40:07

a room and there'd be a bunch

40:10

of people from the Environmental Protection Agency

40:12

and they would know 100 details, I

40:14

didn't know, 100 statutes, I didn't know,

40:17

and I'd be working on 20 different

40:19

topics. This would be their only topic.

40:21

And you sort of walk out of

40:24

the room defeated by it. You had

40:26

a sense that they weren't right, but

40:28

you couldn't quite prove it. and overcome

40:31

it. And I think that happened over

40:33

and over again in this administration as

40:35

well. And that might be one of

40:37

the silver linings we get from a

40:40

Trump administration is overcoming some of that,

40:42

just enormous amounts of inertia that's built

40:44

up. Is there any way to? model

40:47

or anticipate the economic effects of, I'm

40:49

not even quite sure how to characterize

40:51

this because it's been, so kind of

40:54

head of the norm in the last

40:56

few weeks, but the kind of control

40:58

of private sector actors like Elon Musk

41:01

and the oligarchy in the sense that

41:03

the administration can be bought off and

41:05

getting rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices

41:08

Act, there's this kind of whole category

41:10

of things that just allow private sector

41:12

actors to influence policy in ways that

41:15

they were. at least constrained from doing

41:17

before. Do you imagine that having a

41:19

major economic effect or just a kind

41:22

of coercive political effect? I think it's

41:24

more corrosive political than economic. Economically it's

41:26

a minus, not a plus, but my

41:29

guess is it's a small minus, and

41:31

there's a tendency if you're an economic

41:33

person to want to make everything into

41:35

an economic problem. There could be things

41:38

that are really bad that aren't measured

41:40

in terms of GDP and are measured

41:42

other ways, and I think this is

41:45

probably one of them. So you know

41:47

that one of the kind of core

41:49

tenets of post-new liberal thinking, and this

41:52

I think applies across administrations as well,

41:54

is the sense that deficits just don't

41:56

matter in the way that we once

41:59

thought they did. You wrote a piece

42:01

in, I believe, 2019 in foreign affairs

42:03

with Larry Summers. I think it was

42:06

called Washington's deficit obsession. A lot of

42:08

that was a political argument that Republicans

42:10

talk about deficits when they're out of

42:13

power, but then do nothing about it.

42:15

Once they're in, so Democrats shouldn't be

42:17

the only administration's that really focus on

42:20

cutting deficits. But some of it was

42:22

a sense that we'd be able to

42:24

see the signs that the deficit was

42:27

becoming a problem before we had to

42:29

do something about it, and we would

42:31

kind of have time to act. As

42:33

you reflect back on that piece, is

42:36

there. And are we now at the

42:38

moment where we should start freaking out?

42:40

Are we kind of seeing the science

42:43

that this is becoming a real problem?

42:45

There's a lot of people on the

42:47

deficit that are stopped clocks. It's always

42:50

a crisis for them, or it's never

42:52

a problem for them. And I'm just

42:54

not one of those people. I changed

42:57

my mind on this. I change my

42:59

mind, I think mostly because the world

43:01

changes and reality changes. Some of it

43:04

may be that I overtork in one

43:06

direction or the other, or have better

43:08

thoughts over time. In 2019, interest rates

43:11

were too low. Now interest rates are

43:13

too high. Now the debt is much

43:15

higher than it was in 2019. We

43:18

did too little stimulus in the wake

43:20

of the financial crisis. We did too

43:22

much stimulus this time. So I don't

43:25

think there's a, it never matters or

43:27

it always is a crisis that is

43:29

the answer here. It's figuring out how

43:31

to get the balance right. And right

43:34

now, based on Our fiscal trajectory our

43:36

interest rates the impediments to growth in

43:38

our economy and all of that leads

43:41

you to the same direction of being

43:43

worried today in a way that didn't

43:45

make sense to worry frankly six years

43:48

ago What would a crisis look like

43:50

what would cause you to become really

43:52

concerned that we're? Approaching a really scary

43:55

point soon. There's not a lot of

43:57

models of a crisis in a country

43:59

like the United States that borrows in

44:02

its own currency and handles its own

44:04

money. But there are things. In the

44:06

early 1990s, for example, Canada had a

44:09

big spike in interest rates. I think

44:11

they went up about 300 basis points.

44:13

And it got really ugly. They had

44:16

a political system that was pretty functional,

44:18

sat down, and did a big deficit

44:20

reduction plan, and got everything back together

44:23

again for their country. In some ways,

44:25

that's a favorable story. They approached the

44:27

brink and somehow got past it. In

44:29

other ways, if the 10-year treasury goes

44:32

up to 8.5% from 5.5%, that'd be

44:34

a pretty scary thing. for the entire

44:36

global economy and how functional would I

44:39

count on the U.S. political system to

44:41

be in handling it, I'm not sure.

44:43

So to go back to the new

44:46

essay, it was of course more retrospective

44:48

than it was about crafting a new

44:50

approach, but it was motivated, I think,

44:53

by a desire to start the fight

44:55

over what comes next. And you are

44:57

not obviously a huge fan of the

45:00

post-neiberal view, but nor are you a

45:02

defender of neoliberalism as it's called in

45:04

all of its dimensions. kind of post

45:07

post neoliberal synthesis might look like if

45:09

you kind of take the best elements

45:11

of both what are the ingredients there

45:14

or what are the questions that you

45:16

think we should be working through at

45:18

this point as we think about what

45:21

that approach might look like. So first

45:23

of all I'd love to be back

45:25

in your pages to flesh out a

45:27

more affirmative forward-looking agenda. Part of it

45:30

is about productivity and growth. This is

45:32

what some people are calling an abundance

45:34

agenda. I'm really excited for the book

45:37

that Ezra and Derek Thompson are going

45:39

to have. on that topic. And just

45:41

with a growing pie, you can deal

45:44

with a lot of issues, and there

45:46

are a lot of impediments to growing

45:48

the pie on the supply side. Some

45:51

of them traditional Republican concerns about over-regulation,

45:53

some of them are quite different. So

45:55

that's one part of it. Second is

45:58

I have old-fashioned traditional views of a

46:00

belief in redistribution. I think that there

46:02

are people that can afford to pay

46:05

more in taxes, and I think there's

46:07

much more we can do, especially in

46:09

terms of investing in children and reorienting

46:12

our fiscal system. more Iran children. Finally,

46:14

there's a problem that's really vexed me,

46:16

and I don't know the exact answer

46:19

to it, but the employment rate in

46:21

the United States is for prime age

46:23

workers, 25 to 54, not as good

46:25

as many other advanced economies. It took

46:28

a bigger blow in the last couple

46:30

of recessions than it did in many

46:32

other countries. I don't think that totally

46:35

liberal and free labor markets are the

46:37

way to handle it. And so trying

46:39

to understand what we can do to

46:42

sustainably approach a full employment economy, which

46:44

I don't think is about overtorking demand,

46:46

but again, trying to understand what's going

46:49

on on the supply side that's been

46:51

an impediment there. What about the industrial

46:53

policy piece of this? What's the right

46:56

way to think about that as a

46:58

tool? Or I guess Brian Deese, the

47:00

head of Biden's National Economic Council, called

47:03

it an industrial strategy when he was

47:05

on the podcast a few months ago.

47:07

intriguing area. There are more economists who

47:10

are approaching it in a reasonably open-minded

47:12

way these days. Observations like basically no

47:14

country developed a semiconductor industry without a

47:17

substantial amount of government involvement. So trying

47:19

to understand the intersection of national security,

47:21

supply chain, resilience. you know, what it's

47:23

like when you're dealing with competitors and

47:26

countries that aren't always good faith in

47:28

the international system. I think that's an

47:30

important thing to figure out. I don't

47:33

think it's actually going to be central

47:35

to the well-being of most of Americans

47:37

economically. Don't think it's going to be

47:40

that important to our politics, but definitely

47:42

matters to our safety and resilience as

47:44

a country. Well, let's close with an

47:47

agreement to revisit some of these forward-looking

47:49

questions in our pages. But Jason, for

47:51

now, thank you so much for the

47:54

peace and for joining me today. Thanks

47:56

for having me. Thank

48:01

you for listening. You can find

48:03

the articles that we discussed on

48:05

today's show at foreign affairs.com. The

48:07

Foreign Affairs interview is produced by

48:09

Julia Fleming Dresser, Molly McEnany, Ben

48:11

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48:13

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48:15

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48:17

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