Shortly before the Democratic National Convention, Kamala Harris started to announce some economic policy plans. More on the plans in another post (probably just above/after this one).
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Disclaimer 1: I am not a Harris fan.
Disclaimer 2: I do not like Trump either. The unusual thing about me, relative to others you may know with a negative view of Trump, is that mine go back much further. I grew up in the state of New York, where Trump was often in the news, and have disliked just about everything about Trump since ... probably 1983 or 1984. So yeah, I'm biased, but I don't have TDS, and I'm accused fairly often of supporting him (which is grating).
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Anyway, the Harris campaign is demonstrating something that is a problem for both parties. It's a development over the last 15-25 years. And it tends to be worse for the Democrats.
A related point is that there is no certification for being an economist or economics advisor. If you see a CPA on TV, you can be almost certain they're an accountant. If you see an economist on TV ... you should do some digging.
The first mention that I read or heard of Harris actually having collected some economic advisors came in the piece entitled "Kamala Harris’s Economic Team and Agenda Start to Take Shape" [sic] which appeared in the Wall Street Journal on August 14. I dived right in.
You have to read until the 14th paragraph before they name names. Probably a reason for that.
Do note that this came out before the blow up about Ms. Harris proposing widespread price controls. That was probably in the works at that time. They're focus then was "... making housing more affordable, lowering costs for families, taking on corporate excess and boosting small businesses ...".
First, a few notes.
- The NEC noted below is for National Economic Council. This is a White House office created under the Clinton administration as a substitute for the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA). The latter is staffed by economists. The former is staffed by political aides and advisors. The CEA was established in 1946 when the U.S. (and other countries) first started adopting intentional macroeconomic policies that were largely Keynesian.
- Degrees in public policy or social policy typically come from schools or colleges within universities entitled something like school of public policy. Schools of social policy are rarer, and have more of a sociology focus. In both the focus is on policy. In some, one can graduate without ever having taken a class in economics (where we do this thing where we differentiate good policies from bad ones).
- In the U.S., law students are generally not required to take classes in economics at all, although some schools have electives. It was considered really radical in 1989 when my friend Harry Butler first started offering economics for continuing education credit to Federal judges.
So here's the list of advisors:
- Brian Nelson, lawyer from Yale, unknown BA from UCLA, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (personal note, financial intelligence does not sound friendly)
- Mike Pyle, lawyer from Yale, unknown BA from Dartmouth, Deputy National Security Advisor for Internal Economics under Biden, Harris' 2020 campaign's economics advisor, member of the NEC under Obama (personal note, I wonder why the NSA needs someone who works on economics inside the country)
- Brian Deese, lawyer from Yale, BA in Poli. Sci. from Middlebury, director of the NEC under Biden
- Gene Sperling, lawyer from Yale, BA in Poli. Sci. from Minnesota, member of the NEC under Biden, Director of the NEC, and attorney for the Secretary of the Treasury under Obama, director of the NEC under Clinton
- Deanne Millison, lawyer from Harvard, unknown BA from Washington University in St. Louis, liason between Harris and the NEC
- Rohini Kosoglu, long time Harris advisor, MSP (masters of social policy) from George Washington, unknown BA from Michigan, domestic policy advisor in the Biden White House, aide to three different senators
- Grace Landrieu, member of the NEC, MA in Public Policy from the Kennedy School at Harvard, BA in Government from Georgetown, with a minor in Economics
- Bharat Ramamurti, a lawyer from Yale, with an unknown undergraduate major, former deputy director of the NEC, and former aide to Senator Warren
That's a list of lawyers, with only a single econ minor in the bunch.
I am a firm believer that a President or candidate should be able to choose who they want, and within broad latitude get them approved and working ASAP.
Having said that, the choice of appointees tells us something about the candidate or President.
And the pattern I see here is that Harris and her team don't think you need any background in economics to do economic policy.
Good luck with that.
By analogy, I wish the voters knew that the dance recital was being planned by the football coaches.
In the future, when we try to fathom why a Harris policy proposal makes no economic sense, this may be part of the reason.
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