WASHINGTON — Nearly every living economist who led the White House Board of Economic Advisers in a Republican administration — including the three presidents under President Donald J. Trump — signed a letter urging Congress to nominate President Biden’s new nominee for the counsel, Jared Bernstein.
The letter, obtained by The New York Times, praises Mr. Bernstein for his contacts with economists across ideological lines and for his work in drafting the original proposal for the Opportunity Zones program that was included in the 2017 tax package that Mr. Trump signed into law.
The Senate banking committee will hold a hearing on Tuesday on Mr. Bernstein’s nomination. Democrats had worried about his chances of passing a committee vote after Pennsylvania Democrat Senator John Fetterman was hospitalized in February for treatment for depression. They had stepped up their efforts to bring Republican senators to justice to support Mr. Bernstein. Mr. Fetterman has since returned to office in the Senate.
Mr. Bernstein has served on the council since the beginning of Mr. Biden’s administration. The president tapped him this year to succeed Cecilia Rouse, who stepped down late last month to return to her post at Princeton University. Prior to that, Mr. Bernstein was an advisor to Mr. Biden when he was vice president, a fixture at Washington liberal think tanks, and a frequent sparring partner with conservative economists on cable news.
He also teamed up with Kevin Hassett, a conservative economist who later led the council under Trump, to draft a white paper for the Economic Innovation Group think tank on another effort to direct investment to impoverished parts of the United States . These were the so-called opportunity zones, which were included in the Tax Act 2017.
The Biden Presidency
- Free trade: Under President Biden, the United States has refused to pursue new free trade agreements with other countries. That approach has now become a major headache for the administration.
- Preparations for 2024: President Biden sharpens his message ahead of an expected re-election bid, warning that a strong economy could weaken under Republican leadership.
- Defending Democracy: The Biden administration’s defense of global democracies is being tested by a political crisis in Israel and declines in democracy in other countries closely associated with the United States.
The program designates areas in each state where investors in real estate, operating companies or other projects are eligible for significant tax benefits, which may include no capital gains tax on gains from their investments in those areas. Republicans have defended the zones since the law was passed. Some critics, including in Washington think tanks, have criticized them for making investments in some areas that quickly gentrified. Recent research has shown that the number of zones that have emerged since their creation years ago are increasingly attracting investment.
Mr. Hassett, who initiated the letter to members of the banking committee on behalf of Mr. Bernstein, and his fellow former councilors called the idea for the zones an example of Mr. Bernstein’s outside-the-box thinking about economics.
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Mr. Bernstein has “earned a reputation for producing informative, data-driven analysis and developing creative policy ideas,” the former heads of the council wrote.
Along with Mr. Hassett, two other acting chiefs of the council under Mr. Trump signed the letter: Tomas Phillipson and Tyler Goodspeed. Other signatories included Michael J. Boskin, who led the council under President George HW Bush, and three former presidents under President George W. Bush: Ben S. Bernanke, N. Gregory Mankiw, and R. Glenn Hubbard.
Mr Hassett said he had been unable to reach the only other former chairman of the council under a Republican, Alan Greenspan, to ask him to sign the letter.
In an interview, Mr. Hassett praised Mr. Bernstein’s collegiality and suggested that he continue a bipartisan tradition of council chairmen seeking advice from their predecessors from both political parties.
“I disagree with Jared on a lot of things, and Jared and I have disagreed on things for 20 years,” Mr. Hassett said. “But he’s really a fundamentally good person who tries to figure things out with an open mind and changes his mind.”
