Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Allaway. Tracy, I'm very
Speaker 1: excited about today's episode. Obviously, you know, we we talk
Speaker 1: a lot about economic theory on the show. We talk
Speaker 1: a lot about how like changes have in economic thinking
Speaker 1: have changed from you know, now and pre crisis and
Speaker 1: so forth. We talked about the sort of condition of
Speaker 1: the macro economy quite a bit, but you know, not
Speaker 1: as much on the actual I guess, specific policymaking side. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: today is a chance for us to put theory into practice,
Speaker 1: I guess. And we've been talking basically a year now
Speaker 1: about this idea of the handoff to fiscal policy, this
Speaker 1: movement from monetary policy to fiscal eimulus being more important
Speaker 1: for economies post COVID, and now's our chance to actually
Speaker 1: dig into how fiscal policy is enacted and how people
Speaker 1: in power are thinking about it. Yeah, exactly right. So
Speaker 1: like that is of course a huge theme, a huge
Speaker 1: discussion the sort of the post I guess. I would say,
Speaker 1: you know that the lesson of the last years that
Speaker 1: fiscal firepower has been incredibly effective at reviving the economy,
Speaker 1: and there is certainly an increased openness, it feels like,
Speaker 1: politically and also intellectually to really take a more expansive
Speaker 1: view of what government spending and taxation power is capable
Speaker 1: of in terms of building into economy and sort of
Speaker 1: not leaving all of so many of so much of
Speaker 1: the decision making to um the Central Bank. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's exactly right. And we are seeing even you know,
Speaker 1: if you think back a couple of years, even the
Speaker 1: idea of massive fiscal spend ending things like direct payments
Speaker 1: to Americans were kind of on the fringe. But now
Speaker 1: not only have we seen that happen, but people are
Speaker 1: talking about other things for future crises, such as automatic
Speaker 1: stabilizers things like that. Yeah, exactly right. It feels like
Speaker 1: it's a time of of openness to new ideas, which
Speaker 1: often is the case after a big crisis. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: want to jump right into our discussion today because we
Speaker 1: have the perfect guest with the perfect perspective to talk
Speaker 1: about all this. We're gonna be speaking with Jared Bernstein.
Speaker 1: He is a member of the White Houses Council of
Speaker 1: Economic Advisors right now, advising the President on economic policy,
Speaker 1: and he was the Previously, he was the chief economist
Speaker 1: and economic advisor to then Vice President Joe Biden coming
Speaker 1: out of the Great Financial Crisis. So he's truly an
Speaker 1: extraordinary purch extraordinary position, great perspective to talk about today,
Speaker 1: in the past and everything that's going on. Uh A,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining odd lots. Well, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for inviting me. I think the right way
Speaker 1: to start is to say long time listener, first time caller,
Speaker 1: as they say, that's great. I love hearing that. I've
Speaker 1: taken many a job accompanied by the two of you,
Speaker 1: which has helped, you know, burn calories and learn something
Speaker 1: while I'm running. So well, we're all about physical fitness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're the second person recently to actually cite our podcast
Speaker 1: in contributing to burn calories, which is, you know, it's
Speaker 1: nice to be listened to by influential people and stuff,
Speaker 1: but we really want to help people lose weights, so
Speaker 1: that that really means a lot. But you know, I
Speaker 1: want to start actually with something UM kind of specific.
Speaker 1: So we're in this I think pretty extraordinary moment. Economic
Speaker 1: growth is much faster than I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people UM would have guests. The willingness of the government
Speaker 1: over the last year, both onto the last administration in
Speaker 1: this one, to you engage age and aggressive fiscal expansion
Speaker 1: is truly historical. But there is this other bill or
Speaker 1: possibly set of bills that the White House is aiming
Speaker 1: to pass later this year, and I want to get
Speaker 1: into those. But right now everyone's talking about inflation, lumber prices,
Speaker 1: gas prices, and so forth. We know that the Fed
Speaker 1: is planning on basically really looking through that understanding its transitory,
Speaker 1: but from a political perspective and thinking about the task
Speaker 1: ahead of you this summer and sort of building support
Speaker 1: for more aggressive fiscal firepower infrastructure. Is that a political challenge?
Speaker 1: You know? This, this sort of thinking about, Okay, we
Speaker 1: need to convince members of Congress and the Senate to
Speaker 1: spend a lot more money. At the same time, the
Speaker 1: news is filled with stories about rising prices. Well, I
Speaker 1: think anything you undertake in Washington, given the legislative environment,
Speaker 1: as a political challenge. But you're very much correct to
Speaker 1: think about this, at least from my perspective and that
Speaker 1: of our economic t from the perspective of political economy
Speaker 1: or the intersection of politics and uh, the kind of
Speaker 1: economics concerns embedded in your question from the inflation perspective,
Speaker 1: it's really really important to separate the American Rescue Plan
Speaker 1: from the Families and Jobs Plan because the former the
Speaker 1: former is very much in the spirit really of relief
Speaker 1: more than stimulus, and that that that's a subtle difference,
Speaker 1: but one that I think it probably isn't lost on
Speaker 1: this audience, where stimulus is often about trying to quickly
Speaker 1: address a demand shock and get people back into the economy,
Speaker 1: where relief is more about helping people and businesses get
Speaker 1: to the other side. But putting that distinction aside for
Speaker 1: a second, there's a big difference between direct impact payments
Speaker 1: or the checks you were just referencing, and enhanced Unemployment
Speaker 1: benefit PPP loans things like that, and a set of
Speaker 1: investments that spend out over eight to ten years from
Speaker 1: both from the perspective of kind of the of the
Speaker 1: political economy or the kind of the politics of those
Speaker 1: different initiatives, and uh to your question from the perspective
Speaker 1: of inflation, I think it's actually quite a non sequitur
Speaker 1: to talk about the Jobs and the Family Plan and
Speaker 1: the kind of you know, monthly inflation reads that we're
Speaker 1: digging into right now, that are very much driven by
Speaker 1: base effects, by what we we believe to be transitory
Speaker 1: supply demand misalignments by some of the pent up demand,
Speaker 1: and the elevated savings rates and investments in long term
Speaker 1: clean energy initiatives, advanced manufacturing, standing up a care sector
Speaker 1: measures which I'm sure we can get into from the
Speaker 1: Families and Jobs Plan, pretty different creatures from the perspective
Speaker 1: of price pressures. Well, just on that subject, is there
Speaker 1: anything the administration could do to expand capacity for things
Speaker 1: that are in short supply? So I'm thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: lumber is obviously important for housing. Horn prices have also surged,
Speaker 1: important source of food, animal feed, semiconductors have already been
Speaker 1: discussed by the administration as being strategically important. But is
Speaker 1: there more that you could do? Would you be inclined
Speaker 1: to do more? So let me begin my answer there
Speaker 1: with with a very firm statement which may sound a
Speaker 1: little tangential to your question, Tracy, but I don't think
Speaker 1: is um, which is that when it comes to managing inflation,
Speaker 1: that is first and last, beginning and end. Uh. How
Speaker 1: I want to just really emphasize this, the remit of
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve, not the White House. Clearly we are
Speaker 1: tracking carefully monitoring inflationary developments, and by the way, not
Speaker 1: just in the data, which we're doing with the regular data,
Speaker 1: the high frequency data, but also anecdote. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is something we're tracking extremely carefully. But when it comes
Speaker 1: to managing price pressures, that's the job of the Federal Reserve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that that that's that kind of independence of the
Speaker 1: Fed is a huge value of of course our administration.
Speaker 1: That said, um, you raise a perfectly legitimate question that
Speaker 1: is addressed by some of the measures in the Job's Plan.
Speaker 1: In particular, you mentioned semiconductors. So there's a fifty billion
Speaker 1: dollar investment in the in the Job's Plan to help
Speaker 1: promote and onshore some critical supply chain aspects, including semiconductors.
Speaker 1: But this is not something that happens, you know right away.
Speaker 1: I mean as as I was mentioning to Joe. You know, obviously,
Speaker 1: on like the Rescue Plan, the Jobs Plan still has
Speaker 1: to be legislated, but it takes a couple of years
Speaker 1: to stand up a semiconductor plant. When it comes to
Speaker 1: addressing what we're looking at as transitory misalignments between and
Speaker 1: supplying them in and some of the sectors you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I think right there, we have to think about the
Speaker 1: sort of elasticities or response functions that occur in markets
Speaker 1: where demand for lumber sends a signal to saw mills
Speaker 1: to activate the lines that have been dormant. And now
Speaker 1: there there are misalignments that evolved throughout the course of
Speaker 1: the pandemic where I think some key actors took down
Speaker 1: production not foreseeing that it would come back as quickly
Speaker 1: as it did, and those sorts of things that that's not,
Speaker 1: you know, necessarily a position for an administration to intervene in.
Speaker 1: But we'll see how that evolves as as time unfold. Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, and this is a theme that we
Speaker 1: talked about a lot, which is the you know, we
Speaker 1: supply and demand sometimes get discussed as if they're like
Speaker 1: these sort of very distinct separate things and two lines
Speaker 1: intersect on a chart and there is the price. But
Speaker 1: of course, as you basically just alluded to, you know,
Speaker 1: we lost we've lost a lot of supply in part
Speaker 1: because of weak demand, and so we lost saw mill
Speaker 1: demand over the last decade after the Great Financial Crisis,
Speaker 1: with the mediocre housing recovery and tech capex hasn't been
Speaker 1: impressive in your thinking about investment, and you know, again
Speaker 1: the longer term investment. Do you think about basically this
Speaker 1: idea of maintaining demand, whether it's direct purchases of equipment
Speaker 1: or incentives to keep you know, growth high, such that
Speaker 1: private sector actors will be incentivized to continue to build
Speaker 1: out capacity and not just look at the current moment
Speaker 1: as a sort of short short blip. Yeah, generally I
Speaker 1: would say more yes than no, although nobody I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't use the phrase short blip because you just
Speaker 1: don't know right fair enough, We and others have packed
Speaker 1: a lot into this word transitory, but I think what
Speaker 1: it really means is that we expect these misalignments to correct,
Speaker 1: although I don't know that any of us really have
Speaker 1: a great feel for the timing of that because we
Speaker 1: haven't been through this before. I mean, like you said
Speaker 1: Joe earlier, this is a remarkable period. We've we essentially
Speaker 1: shut the economy off and we're turning it back on.
Speaker 1: That's a you know, not something that we have a
Speaker 1: lot of time series evidence on. I think that theoretically,
Speaker 1: the theory of the case is kind of this law
Speaker 1: and this is this is very traditional kind of Keynesian economics.
Speaker 1: Is this is this recognition that the world works much
Speaker 1: more in Keynesian term than in Says Law term, meaning
Speaker 1: that it's it's it's not correct to believe that supply
Speaker 1: creates demand. It's more correct to believe that demand pulls
Speaker 1: in supply. That theory of the case is very much
Speaker 1: you know, embedded in my and I would argue our
Speaker 1: thinking in the administration. However, that said, if you look
Speaker 1: at our plans, particularly the job's plan, but also the
Speaker 1: families Plan, the longer term investment plans, what you see
Speaker 1: there is not a you know, kind of acceptance that
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, completely up to the market to
Speaker 1: align supply and demand and deliver whatever outcomes the market
Speaker 1: delivers full stop. And we'll just stand on the sideline
Speaker 1: and observed. There's much more intention there about, for example,
Speaker 1: not just job creation, but the quality of the jobs
Speaker 1: that are created, um ensuring that those jobs are union
Speaker 1: jobs that pay a good middle class wage. That's one
Speaker 1: of President Biden's most important marching orders to us. It's
Speaker 1: recognizing that there are serious missing markets in this economy.
Speaker 1: The care area is one where that's really pronounced where
Speaker 1: unlike most other advanced countries, we simply don't have an affordable,
Speaker 1: accessible care sector for people who are providing elder care
Speaker 1: or wildcare, which those people are disproportionately women and moms,
Speaker 1: to be able to find a clear path into the
Speaker 1: job market if that's what they want to do, So
Speaker 1: we have to help stand up that sector. The economy
Speaker 1: will under invest in research and innovation, particularly when the
Speaker 1: returns from those investments are longer term. The economy will
Speaker 1: under invest in clean energy at tremendous existential cost to
Speaker 1: our survival, and so there are areas where we have
Speaker 1: to make sure that our investment meets those missing markets
Speaker 1: and helps to create demand that will lead to better
Speaker 1: quality jobs and investments in under invested sectors. Mhm. So
Speaker 1: we have so much to get through, and I want
Speaker 1: to make sure we have time for everything. So if
Speaker 1: I could shift gears slightly to one of the big
Speaker 1: questions hanging over you know, Biden spending plans, which is
Speaker 1: how are they actually going to be paid for? So
Speaker 1: I would love to know you're thinking about the deficit
Speaker 1: I suppose, And also the proposed package includes I think
Speaker 1: tax hikes well enormous tax hikes for the rich, you know,
Speaker 1: something equivalent to one percent of GDP per year. Why
Speaker 1: tax hikes to fund this particular package? And the reason
Speaker 1: I asked that is because, you know, Joe and I
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about economic opinion maybe changing in
Speaker 1: political circles, this idea of stuff like modern monetary theory
Speaker 1: making inroads in the administration. So are the tax hikes
Speaker 1: because you're actually worried about funding the spending plan and
Speaker 1: deficits or is it more about seizing a political opportunity
Speaker 1: that's arisen from this extraordinary time? Is Joe mentioned to
Speaker 1: actually tackle inequality? Okay, another great set of questions to unpack. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I know that it's the only take about three and
Speaker 1: a half hours, but do my. I'll try to be succinct.
Speaker 1: First of all, though, I want to challenge and adjective views,
Speaker 1: which is enormous. Um. Yeah, sorry, I knew you too.
Speaker 1: And well it's it's not just saying that. I happen
Speaker 1: to be looking right now at a new paper that
Speaker 1: just came out by the economist Mark Zany, And in
Speaker 1: chart three of that paper, we shows the building back better,
Speaker 1: that is, American families and jobs planned tax hikes in context,
Speaker 1: and he has a bar chart of all the tax
Speaker 1: hikes that have occurred, you know, since the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: Really it's it's really a lot of work went into
Speaker 1: this chart, and the one at the very bottom is
Speaker 1: the one we've proposed. So I think you have to
Speaker 1: recognize two things send my adjective, okay, And I think
Speaker 1: the reason you get that result is twofold. One is
Speaker 1: that many cases were resetting rates to where they've been
Speaker 1: before or not. Even in the case of the corporate rate.
Speaker 1: Of course, the Trump tax that took the corporate rate
Speaker 1: of thirty five to twenty one, we take it to eight.
Speaker 1: That's our proposal, So that's kind of right in the middle.
Speaker 1: But also, and this is most important for listeners to
Speaker 1: recognize that these tax increases do not hit anybody under
Speaker 1: four hundred thousand family income. And if we're talking about
Speaker 1: the capital gains tax increase, it's only above one million,
Speaker 1: so it only affects the top point three percent. Okay,
Speaker 1: So now that we got that out of the way,
Speaker 1: let's get to the kind of meaty part of your
Speaker 1: question around how we're thinking about deficits and debt. It
Speaker 1: is the president's view that longer term or more permanent
Speaker 1: proposals should be paid for. I think that makes sense,
Speaker 1: and I think one way to recognize the sense that
Speaker 1: that makes is to look at the disinvestment in the
Speaker 1: things that the Jobs Plan in particular, as well as
Speaker 1: the Famili's Plan, invests in research and development, innovation, the
Speaker 1: kinds of long term return investments that private firms often
Speaker 1: won't make because it simply doesn't fit the kind of
Speaker 1: schedule that they have to report on to their investors.
Speaker 1: If you look at infrastructure, everything from public education to
Speaker 1: replacing pipes that have led in them. You know, there's
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of kids who are are still exposed
Speaker 1: in today's America to let in the water. That's completely
Speaker 1: unacceptable to this administration. Again, I talked earlier about a
Speaker 1: car agenda, but even even traditional stuff, you know, roads
Speaker 1: and bridges, those investments have really suffered over the long term.
Speaker 1: And if you look at the share of GDP invested,
Speaker 1: for example, in R and D and innovation, it's gone
Speaker 1: from about two percent in the sixties too about half
Speaker 1: a percent now, a big and portentious drop. Reversing those
Speaker 1: investments is the point of the building back Better agenda,
Speaker 1: and one of the reasons why those investments have failed
Speaker 1: is because they don't have any reliable funding sources. So
Speaker 1: while I completely understand and have in fact contributed to
Speaker 1: the literature that understands deficits and debt in a new
Speaker 1: and different, and you can call it a more progressive way,
Speaker 1: I'd probably call it a more economically and empirically sound way.
Speaker 1: I'm very much moved by that work. I also think
Speaker 1: you have to recognize that the effects of not having
Speaker 1: um funding sources for permanent programs show up all the
Speaker 1: time in their disinvestment, and they're insufficient upkeep. By contrast,
Speaker 1: look at Medicare and Social Security, which have held up,
Speaker 1: you know, relatively well in that space because they have
Speaker 1: dedicated funding sources. We need to keep unpacking this because
Speaker 1: I kind of get that and I kind of don't
Speaker 1: with the so called entitlements or Medicare social Security. Yes,
Speaker 1: they have dedicated funding sources, but they also just have
Speaker 1: laws that say these programs will exist and they're not sunseted.
Speaker 1: They're not temporary. They weren't five year health programs. They
Speaker 1: were at ten year, which they were permanent legal fixtures
Speaker 1: and yes, they did come with dedicated funding sources, payroll
Speaker 1: taxes and so forth. But what makes the programs exist
Speaker 1: forever is the fact that they the laws say they
Speaker 1: have to exist forever. With some of these things that
Speaker 1: you describe, and we agree, you know, or most many
Speaker 1: people would agree, they have been underinvested. How much is
Speaker 1: this a just a just the need to pass a
Speaker 1: law that says this will always be here. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about child care, some sort of family leave thing
Speaker 1: to make it permanent. Seems like it should just be
Speaker 1: a law saying this is a permanent benefit, or it
Speaker 1: seems like it could be solved that way. And so
Speaker 1: when you draw the connection to metacare and Social Security,
Speaker 1: is it that those taxes are needed for the programs
Speaker 1: to exist or are they needed to get the votes
Speaker 1: such that politicians are willing to make them permanent. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, I really think on this one. The way
Speaker 1: I kind of laid it out is, you know, this
Speaker 1: sounds more snarky than I mean, is more correct than
Speaker 1: the way you just laid it out. But let me
Speaker 1: just explain. It's fun I you know you could do that.
Speaker 1: You know, the gut we actually have something called the
Speaker 1: Highway Trust Fund. This is a federal accounting device wherein
Speaker 1: resources are supposed to flow to fund our highway system,
Speaker 1: and its main source of income is a nominal tax
Speaker 1: on gas that hasn't been changed in like thirty five
Speaker 1: years or something. And that and and and even as
Speaker 1: you know, obviously inflation has increased and the efficiency of
Speaker 1: the auto fleet has increased, the Highway Trust Fund is
Speaker 1: always a massive trouble. And it's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why our transportation infrastructure, including mass transit, by the way,
Speaker 1: mass transit, which by the way is in the rescue
Speaker 1: plan and the Job's plan quite deeply that that trust
Speaker 1: fund has failed to support that and the and the
Speaker 1: reason is that it's a law on the books, you know.
Speaker 1: And you know, according to your theory, a law on
Speaker 1: the book should be all that it takes, but it isn't.
Speaker 1: It takes more than that. I actually think if one
Speaker 1: wanted to make a better you know, kind of an
Speaker 1: argument against having to fund these, uh these building back
Speaker 1: better plans, it would be that the return on the
Speaker 1: investments should be greater than the cost of borrowing. And um,
Speaker 1: you know that that is true, and it makes sense
Speaker 1: to me and you'll hear economists, you know, some of
Speaker 1: my economist friends make that point. They say, hey, look,
Speaker 1: you're going to get a return on these investments that
Speaker 1: are great greater than you're borrowing costs, which of course
Speaker 1: are historically low, so why pay for them? And I
Speaker 1: totally get the economics and the public finance kind of
Speaker 1: the g greater than our thinking behind that. But but
Speaker 1: what I do, what I think it misses is the
Speaker 1: political economy of the sustainability point that that Joe Biden
Speaker 1: just intuitively understand. So I actually wanted to ask a
Speaker 1: big picture question on this topic. But do you think
Speaker 1: that economists grasp the political realities of putting theory into practice?
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is, for instance, it's
Speaker 1: one thing to say, you know, if you're an MMT
Speaker 1: person that deficits are only limited by inflation, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily help you get to a place where people
Speaker 1: are enacting more fiscal spending. If everyone can't agree on,
Speaker 1: you know, what to spend the money on. I think
Speaker 1: let me answer it this way. I won't name names,
Speaker 1: but I was trying to I was trying to draft
Speaker 1: an economist to come in and work with us who's
Speaker 1: a uh someone I'm really fond of their work, and
Speaker 1: what I he's a private sector person, And what I
Speaker 1: said to him is, if you really want to understand
Speaker 1: how the economy and the nexus of the economy and
Speaker 1: government work, and I would include theory and that nexus, Tracy,
Speaker 1: you've got to work for the government. You can't understand
Speaker 1: it if you don't. So I do think that there
Speaker 1: is a kind of empirical gap between what a lot
Speaker 1: of theoretical economists sort of right about, and even some
Speaker 1: empirical economists right about, and a kind of tangible, granular
Speaker 1: understanding of how economic policy really works. You might I
Speaker 1: think you mentioned MMT that that's a good example because
Speaker 1: in m m T there's there's a belief that if
Speaker 1: inflation were to take off, this is a kind of
Speaker 1: a timely point. I think, if inflation were to take off,
Speaker 1: don't worry and don't assign much to the FED, because
Speaker 1: that's just not part of the kind of cosmology there.
Speaker 1: You can just raise taxes to take money out of
Speaker 1: the economy. Well, you know, that's a coaching theoretical point,
Speaker 1: but when applied to the real political economy and the
Speaker 1: legislative timing involved therein and the partisans squabbling involved therein.
Speaker 1: But that's not you know, a very I think realistic solution,
Speaker 1: especially when you have a central bank whose independence allows
Speaker 1: it to get outside of that political constraints there and
Speaker 1: do what needs to be done for you know, very
Speaker 1: good sound economic reasons. So I do think that there
Speaker 1: can be a gap between theory and practice, not unlike
Speaker 1: the one I just talked about in terms of with
Speaker 1: to Joe, in terms of why I think President Biden's
Speaker 1: view on pay force for the investment programs makes sense.
Speaker 1: Every every answer you give, I have like a billion
Speaker 1: other questions I want to ask another version though, uh
Speaker 1: kind of related to the mm T question. But you know,
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the beginning, and has anyone who has
Speaker 1: followed your career, You were the chief adviser to then
Speaker 1: Vice President Biden coming out of the Great Financial Crisis
Speaker 1: all else society, and I think there are a lot
Speaker 1: of lessons from that period, particularly the first two years.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty clear that in both sort of
Speaker 1: the intellectual sphere and the media sphere, there is much
Speaker 1: less concern about deficits these days than there was ten
Speaker 1: years ago, or eleven years ago or twelve years ago.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious if from a policy perspective in the
Speaker 1: White House thinking about, Okay, what is uh, you know,
Speaker 1: what is the best stimulus to do, what is the
Speaker 1: best way to structure spending for the next ten years, etcetera.
Speaker 1: That new sort of environment. And if you don't think
Speaker 1: that exists, let me know. But it feels like it does.
Speaker 1: That new environment creates more political space, creates more flexibility
Speaker 1: to achieve your goal. Yeah, that environment does exist more
Speaker 1: there's more fiscal space, and there's more political space to
Speaker 1: wield that fiscal space. Um. Now, the fiscal space existed before.
Speaker 1: But here's an area where I think kind of empirical
Speaker 1: public finance economics has made real strides. Say, from the
Speaker 1: last time I was in government, dealing with a downturn
Speaker 1: in the Great Recession, after the housing bus, and now
Speaker 1: and and and interestingly, as you point out, the current
Speaker 1: president was the vice president there, and I think one
Speaker 1: of the lessons he learned is go big or go
Speaker 1: home is not just important fiscal policy when you're punching
Speaker 1: back against a globally threatening pandemic or last time against
Speaker 1: a globally harmful financial slash housing bus. Um but there's
Speaker 1: also not only the fiscal space to do so, but
Speaker 1: there's actually good research that shows if you fail to
Speaker 1: wield fiscal power policy with enough power to offset the contraction,
Speaker 1: your debt to GDP ratio can actually worse it because
Speaker 1: you've done too little to boost the denominator g d P.
Speaker 1: And again there's uh there, there's I think some pretty
Speaker 1: solid research that that makes this case. So I think
Speaker 1: the urgency and the intersection of good policy, good policy,
Speaker 1: and politics boosted by high quality economic research as all
Speaker 1: landed us in a moment where we've recognized greater fiscal space.
Speaker 1: On the topic of two thousand eight versus after the
Speaker 1: financial crisis, we did see a lot of emphasis on
Speaker 1: trying to fix problems in the housing market that had
Speaker 1: contributed to the financial system melting down. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of focus on GS reform. One of
Speaker 1: the things that was left out in Biden's proposal were
Speaker 1: substantial changes to healthcare, And I'm just wondering what the
Speaker 1: thinking was there, because I guess coming out of having
Speaker 1: experienced a massive health crisis and also needing to stimulate
Speaker 1: the economy, it seems like healthcare would be a really
Speaker 1: good area in some ways to focus on, but so
Speaker 1: far Biden seems to have shied away from that. Well again,
Speaker 1: I think if you look at a couple of different places,
Speaker 1: you'll find that the President has leaned into that and
Speaker 1: not really shied away. So in the Joint Address, there
Speaker 1: was a very important paragraph where the President spoke about
Speaker 1: how important the healthcare agenda is going to be for
Speaker 1: for our administration. There's also some similar language in the
Speaker 1: fact sheet around the family Plan. I feel like we've
Speaker 1: been here for about ten years already, but in fact
Speaker 1: we've only been here for a few months. I think
Speaker 1: we just hit the first hundred days, so we have
Speaker 1: to move the freight on on different cars at different times.
Speaker 1: But there, if you look back to the campaign, you'll
Speaker 1: see many areas that the President has leaned into and
Speaker 1: he is just taking through them with alacrity, with power,
Speaker 1: with legislation, and with you know, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: really quite here, I'm somewhat padding some of my fellows
Speaker 1: deputies here in the administration on the back here, you know,
Speaker 1: with I think some pretty well developed policy plans. So
Speaker 1: healthcare is, of course it's going to be into in
Speaker 1: the mix. It's the economy, and it fits right into
Speaker 1: the discussion we were having before about the public private
Speaker 1: mix and the importance of getting that right. So even
Speaker 1: if it's not in the actual spending bill, now you're
Speaker 1: confident that something substantial is coming down the line. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to lean into something substantial because that begs
Speaker 1: the question of what you're talking about, and we have
Speaker 1: to run an extensive process before we you know, I
Speaker 1: don't front run the President, which is why I still
Speaker 1: have my job. But look look at what he said.
Speaker 1: It's actually worth reading, you know, look at what he
Speaker 1: said in the UH, in the Joint Address and the
Speaker 1: Family's plan, because he he really does lean into what
Speaker 1: we're going to be planning to do it. In that space,
Speaker 1: I want to pivot a little bit the conversation towards
Speaker 1: the FED. And of course, obviously the Fed's independent, we
Speaker 1: all we all know that. But you mentioned that there's
Speaker 1: the fed's remit to think about inflation. And of course
Speaker 1: the White House has a role in shaping who is
Speaker 1: who is on the FED now and who is going
Speaker 1: to be on it in the future. So I want
Speaker 1: to ask a couple of questions on that. But uh,
Speaker 1: you know, to start with you know, thinking about the
Speaker 1: question of Powell, He's have obviously had this sort of
Speaker 1: pretty I I think a lot of people would say
Speaker 1: fairly radical shift for the FED to really focus on labor,
Speaker 1: to not try to preempt inflation, to uh commit in
Speaker 1: a way that we haven't seen, to not snuffing out
Speaker 1: the recovery prematurely. That seems to be a shifted. And
Speaker 1: he also seems to have um won the respect of
Speaker 1: financial markets quite a bit, which is rare when you
Speaker 1: think about the question of a potential reappointment or replacement.
Speaker 1: Is that respect that he has among financial markets? Do
Speaker 1: you think that's an important thing? Well, I'm definitely not
Speaker 1: going to say anything about the personnel. You know, this
Speaker 1: is sure. It used to be a gun flapping chin,
Speaker 1: music making pundit who talked about all this kind of
Speaker 1: thing all day long, and it's hard to draw that
Speaker 1: line now. And remember that I'm I'm in the White House,
Speaker 1: and you know we're gonna try. We're gonna try. Our
Speaker 1: goal used to be to make news. Now my goal
Speaker 1: is to not make news. So I'm not going to
Speaker 1: make news. Let me say instead the following I talked
Speaker 1: a second ago about what I think is one of
Speaker 1: the most important advances in UH political economy, which is
Speaker 1: the recognition of true fiscal space, a recognition that I
Speaker 1: think was significantly fogged up by views on crowding out,
Speaker 1: how public borrowing would crowd out private borrowing and pressure
Speaker 1: interest rates that has long been unsupported by the empirical record. Well,
Speaker 1: there's another important, the other you know, equally important economic
Speaker 1: development that I would put, you know, really in the
Speaker 1: stratosphere of ways that economists are better understanding how economies
Speaker 1: really work is of course the relationship between unemployment and inflation.
Speaker 1: And you know, in this regard, I think one of
Speaker 1: Powell's most important speeches was, I believe with the Jackson
Speaker 1: whole speech when he talked about how because there's so
Speaker 1: much uncertainty around what we call the star variables, why
Speaker 1: star you star, our star potential g d P, the
Speaker 1: natural rate of unemployment, the natural rate of interest. These
Speaker 1: are all theoretical concepts that you don't know, maybe it's
Speaker 1: too strong to say that can't be, but are extremely
Speaker 1: hard to be reliably estimated by which I mean estimated
Speaker 1: within a policy relevant confidence interval. That that I think,
Speaker 1: you know, going back to Bernanke yelling Powell that the
Speaker 1: recognition that the confidence interval around those estimates is far
Speaker 1: far wider than was realized before, and that it's beyond
Speaker 1: our empirical scope to to nail them down has led
Speaker 1: to a much more data driven approach to both fiscal
Speaker 1: and monetary policy. And that's a really great advance, particularly
Speaker 1: from the perspective of tightening labor markets. And there you've
Speaker 1: heard again this dates back before Powell. There you've heard
Speaker 1: the Fellow Reserve make critically important connections. By the way,
Speaker 1: most of my research agenda before I took this particular
Speaker 1: their job was in this space that I'm about to mention,
Speaker 1: the really important connection between achieving full employment and pushing
Speaker 1: back on racial inequities, on economic inequality, providing folks and
Speaker 1: communities are typically left behind, but the kind of economically
Speaker 1: opportunities they need and deserve that is very much linked
Speaker 1: up to achieving persistent, stable full employment, and that and
Speaker 1: getting to persistent, stable, truly chock full employment is itself
Speaker 1: closely related to these important insights about both fiscal and
Speaker 1: monetary policy. So this is something that I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you about. So you wrote, I think it was
Speaker 1: just last year that the FED should consider targeting not
Speaker 1: the overall unemployment rate, but the black rate. And now
Speaker 1: we have this idea of an inclusive and broad based
Speaker 1: employment framework from the FED. But in your opinion, what
Speaker 1: is that actually mean? And does the Central Bank need
Speaker 1: to go further by perhaps setting explicit targets for black
Speaker 1: unemployment for instance. Yeah, So when I wrote that, I
Speaker 1: wasn't in the administration, and you know, I felt that
Speaker 1: that was so. I was again, I was playing chin
Speaker 1: music all day about things that I don't sing about now.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I think if you look back
Speaker 1: at least, what I was trying to say was was
Speaker 1: not so much as the FED should target black unemployment,
Speaker 1: but that racial equity and monetary policy are linked in
Speaker 1: the way that I was describing a minute ago, because
Speaker 1: if you look at who benefits disproportionately from tight labor markets,
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's people and communities of color. So and
Speaker 1: actually you could see this in a way that was
Speaker 1: fascinating to me. I was. I was writing, you know,
Speaker 1: empirical papers about this, crunching the heck out of every
Speaker 1: number I could find showing how existently low unemployment was
Speaker 1: providing labor market opportunities on so many different margins, not
Speaker 1: just the extensive margin, which is pulling people into the
Speaker 1: job market who weren't there before, but as much and
Speaker 1: even more so the intensive margin, giving those people way
Speaker 1: more hours of work if that's what they if that's
Speaker 1: what they wanted, and the changes for say African Americans
Speaker 1: in the bottom quintile. I did a paper with a
Speaker 1: guy named Keith Bentley on this, which you can find
Speaker 1: out there somewhere are economically really large. So those connections,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, what what I can talk about is
Speaker 1: what I mentioned in my last comment is the intersection
Speaker 1: between critically important new insights in fiscal space and in
Speaker 1: the relationships between unemployment and inflation, the linkage between those
Speaker 1: insights and the ability to maintain full employment with such
Speaker 1: deep benefits to two groups that are too often left behind.
Speaker 1: So I want to explore this point further, but I
Speaker 1: think you know, one of the particularly tragic things about
Speaker 1: the timing of the coronavirus crisis and this setback was
Speaker 1: that right prior to it, we were seeing um an
Speaker 1: impressive level of compression between say, the white unemployment rate
Speaker 1: and the black unemployment rate. As as you know, the
Speaker 1: economy continue to improve, and so obviously there's a hope
Speaker 1: that we can get back there really fast. But it also,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, seems like unfortunate that Okay, that
Speaker 1: was a desirable state, but that came after ten years
Speaker 1: or I don't know, nine years of a very disappointingly
Speaker 1: wide gap and uh sort of labor market that was
Speaker 1: almost nobody's idea of tight. How do you think, like, okay,
Speaker 1: like we want to get back that. But and I
Speaker 1: guess this gets to the question of, like what is
Speaker 1: your what is President Biden's vision of like the future?
Speaker 1: Can we have that sustainably? Can we have that so
Speaker 1: that we always have a tight labor market and it's
Speaker 1: not just like a special treat that comes at the
Speaker 1: end of every expansion. Yeah, that's a great question. Let
Speaker 1: me talk about it from my economist perspective and then
Speaker 1: shift to the president's vision here, because it's that the
Speaker 1: latter is way more important as he's the president. Here's
Speaker 1: the statistics that I haven't cooked up lately. But so
Speaker 1: it may this this number changes as you'll see, but
Speaker 1: I think I'm in the right ballpark. If you look
Speaker 1: at the percentage of quarters starting around which is the
Speaker 1: period when job markets have been persistently to slack. If
Speaker 1: you look at the percentage of quarters where the unemployment
Speaker 1: rate has been above the CBO's estimate of of of
Speaker 1: what the natural rate is, that is the lowest unemployment
Speaker 1: rate and system with full employment, that ratio is six
Speaker 1: point six six, you know, points seven, maybe point seven five,
Speaker 1: it depending on the end points that you choose. That is,
Speaker 1: most of the quarters or most of the years since
Speaker 1: nine teen eight, this economy has been slacked. And that's
Speaker 1: by a measure which you know probably in many years
Speaker 1: pitches the natural rate too high. So it's probably even
Speaker 1: worse than that. So the foundation of your question is
Speaker 1: exactly right. We have not had tight enough labor markets.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the great insights of recent federal reserves,
Speaker 1: and again links back to the importance of recognizing fiscal space. Now,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is not an economist, but I've been talking
Speaker 1: with him about this since we sat down in his
Speaker 1: in his house in in November of two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight and talked about me perhaps coming on as his
Speaker 1: chief economists. The very first thing we talked about, he
Speaker 1: pulled out a graph that I've made with Larry Michelle,
Speaker 1: which showed the gap between productivity growth and median compensation. Okay,
Speaker 1: so productivity growth gros grows, grows, not as fast as
Speaker 1: we'd like, but it does grow, you know, of percent
Speaker 1: percent and a half per year on trend, and the
Speaker 1: median compensation, the compensation workers right in the middle of
Speaker 1: the scale was flat, flat, flat for you know, not
Speaker 1: all of those years. And in fact, in the latter
Speaker 1: nineties when the job market really tightened up precisely like
Speaker 1: my earlier theories, you know, we're trying to uh predict that.
Speaker 1: Then you saw some action at the median but for
Speaker 1: the most part. And by the way, Larry Michelle and
Speaker 1: Josh Bibbins have a forthcoming paper on this which is
Speaker 1: really elucidating. You need to get get him on here
Speaker 1: and talk to them about it, you know. And and
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, who's the vice president elect, then pointed to
Speaker 1: that graph and said, this is what I want us
Speaker 1: to work on. I want middle class people to get
Speaker 1: a fair shake. I want to think about the policy
Speaker 1: agenda that's going to in my words, relink median compensation
Speaker 1: and overall economic growth. And that agenda is a deep
Speaker 1: one and now that now that you see what the
Speaker 1: president is up to, that's what he's doing. So unions
Speaker 1: are part of that because the as as Bibbins and
Speaker 1: Michelle will show, have shown in various papers, and it's
Speaker 1: going to be part of this new one as well.
Speaker 1: The loss of bargaining power for workers in the middle
Speaker 1: class has certainly put downward pressure on wages. The absence
Speaker 1: of persistent full employment, as Joe's question suggested, is very
Speaker 1: much in that mix. The inaccessibility for women too, in
Speaker 1: particular caretakers to have a clear line of access into
Speaker 1: the job market because there's a childcare sector that's affordable
Speaker 1: and accessible. The absence of investment in in good middle
Speaker 1: class jobs, and new expanding areas of the economy, including
Speaker 1: advanced manufacturing, clean energy, electric vehicles, these are all parts
Speaker 1: of the plan, and at least from a kind of
Speaker 1: macro labor perspective, it's all about trying to reconnect middle
Speaker 1: class working families to the overall prosperity in the economy.
Speaker 1: And then I'll finish up that. That's that's why well,
Speaker 1: you know, we started this conversation saying, boy, we're getting
Speaker 1: some good growth numbers. You know, g d P north
Speaker 1: of six percent in Q one. That's great, We're all
Speaker 1: for it. It does not obviate the work that I
Speaker 1: just described, because at the end of the day, if
Speaker 1: this administration achieves high GDP growth, low unemployment, of booming
Speaker 1: stock market, but it doesn't reach the middle class in
Speaker 1: the way that the President has set out for us,
Speaker 1: we have we will have failed to march to his
Speaker 1: marching orders, and that's not something I want to do.
Speaker 1: Just on the subject of the FED more widely, so,
Speaker 1: you've emphasized in this conversation a number of times the
Speaker 1: importance of the central bank being independent from government, but
Speaker 1: we're also talking about the importance of fiscal space. I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: do you see scope for monetary policy to enhance or
Speaker 1: work in some way together with fiscal stimulus. How do
Speaker 1: you see those two things interacting. Well, I think that
Speaker 1: they just naturally interact all the time. And I think
Speaker 1: that what we've seen in the current recovery, largely from
Speaker 1: a macro sense, is the importance of the one to
Speaker 1: punch of fiscal and monetary policy. There is a risk,
Speaker 1: going back to games if if you're relying on monetary
Speaker 1: policy alone of pushing on a string. That is, you
Speaker 1: can make credit as accessible as you want, but if
Speaker 1: people don't have direct impact payments or checks, you know,
Speaker 1: money in their pockets, uh, they won't have the resources
Speaker 1: take to take advantage of those low rates. So I
Speaker 1: think one of the lessons of the last couple of
Speaker 1: downturns is that fiscal and monetary have to work together.
Speaker 1: By the way, it One way to just underscore this
Speaker 1: point is to go back and listen what ben Burnanki
Speaker 1: was saying to Congress back in two thousand nine, two
Speaker 1: thousand ten, when he was going up to Congress saying,
Speaker 1: we're doing everything we can to make sure the credit
Speaker 1: markets are fluid and that borrowing costs are low. But
Speaker 1: unless people have the resources that they need, which is
Speaker 1: going to involve temporary fiscal policy because the economy is
Speaker 1: still climbing back slowly, we'll be pushing on a string.
Speaker 1: So there's that. I also think that if properly implemented,
Speaker 1: fiscal policy and monetary policy can be complementary in terms
Speaker 1: of a regime we're in. The Federal Reserve is not
Speaker 1: always looking over its shoulder at the at the at
Speaker 1: the lower at the zero lower bound. You have robust
Speaker 1: fiscal policy, and you have a monetary regime that looks
Speaker 1: less like what we've seen over the last you know,
Speaker 1: decade or even more, where where the interest rate is uh,
Speaker 1: you know, at zero most of the time. I want
Speaker 1: to ask you another question, and I kind of have
Speaker 1: a feeling you might have to answer in two ways
Speaker 1: between your economist pund itself versus your employee of the
Speaker 1: White House self. But when thinking about creating a sort
Speaker 1: of sustained high level of activity and not having these
Speaker 1: downturns that create slack to take years to overcome, should
Speaker 1: we have automatic stabilizers such that so that we don't
Speaker 1: have to hope that Congress, that the political alignment of
Speaker 1: Congress is such that they can pass a bill like
Speaker 1: the Caaras Act when there's a downturn, but rather that
Speaker 1: checks automatically go out to start balancing contacting a downturn
Speaker 1: right away. Well that really this is something that the
Speaker 1: President has leaned into on occasion. In some of his speeches,
Speaker 1: he's talked about the importance of that, and there have
Speaker 1: been various pieces of legislation. I think the again, I
Speaker 1: think the political economy of that is challenging because there's
Speaker 1: the discretion that Congress likes to hold onto. But I
Speaker 1: think there are there are politicians, quite a few, um
Speaker 1: prominent folks. I don't remember names right now, because this
Speaker 1: is in some bills that agree with this proposition and
Speaker 1: that recognize that when you hit a downturn, when the
Speaker 1: economy hits a shock, it could be a you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's a housing or a financial bubble, or a pandemic,
Speaker 1: or the kind of thing that hits us hard and fast.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the political process can be too cumbersome. So the
Speaker 1: idea of these triggers is something that the President, as
Speaker 1: I've mentioned, has talked about on occasion. But I think
Speaker 1: that where we go from there, I can't speak to
Speaker 1: it this one. Do you think there's an expectation now that,
Speaker 1: having you know, sent out direct payments uh recently, that
Speaker 1: in the next crisis or the next time the economy falters,
Speaker 1: people will expect that kind of stimulus again. I guess
Speaker 1: what I'm asking is, do you think there's a sea
Speaker 1: change in attitudes among US voters towards phiscal stimulus and
Speaker 1: especially direct payments. I think there might be, But just
Speaker 1: just for the record, we should recognize that this isn't
Speaker 1: the first time we've done that by a long shot.
Speaker 1: And in fact, I remember checks going out under under
Speaker 1: George Bush before the financial crisis, uh, and earlier checks
Speaker 1: as well. I think what happened this round is that
Speaker 1: they got out really quickly, and they were of a
Speaker 1: magnitude that made a real difference to people. And and
Speaker 1: and the president was talking, you know, I think before
Speaker 1: he was president, in November and December, after he won
Speaker 1: the election, he was talking about how important it was
Speaker 1: to not just get these checks out, but to get
Speaker 1: another round of checks out. So I think your prediction
Speaker 1: about future expectations is probably correct. And I think one
Speaker 1: thing the compliments that prediction is the fact that, uh,
Speaker 1: the I R. S infrastructure was was stood up, you know,
Speaker 1: I think, pretty pretty handily and quickly to get out
Speaker 1: at this point over a hundred sixty million checks. So
Speaker 1: it's it's made a real difference. All right. I just
Speaker 1: have one more question. There's a topic very near and
Speaker 1: dear to me. Maybe it's my only single thing that
Speaker 1: I really care about. If there's ever another dead ceiling impasse,
Speaker 1: is the president prepared to mint a trillion dollar coin
Speaker 1: to get to circumvented or at a minimum at least
Speaker 1: take advantage of this brief window where there's control of
Speaker 1: both Houses of Congress to at least abolish the dead
Speaker 1: sailing permanently. Yeah, that's one of those things I'm not
Speaker 1: going to lean into, uh, but it's a fair question,
Speaker 1: fair question. Had a feeling. All right, Well, Jared, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. We really appreciate you, uh,
Speaker 1: take your time to come on oddline, my pleasure. Thanks
Speaker 1: for inviting me. That was great. Thanks. Jared really enjoyed that. Tracy.
Speaker 1: I thought that was really awesome getting to speak to
Speaker 1: Jared on that. You know, the terms that he kept
Speaker 1: using over and over again was political economy, And I
Speaker 1: think that's what our discussions that we keep having are
Speaker 1: really all about. It really is about It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we know what the theory is, what does it actually
Speaker 1: take to get something past or make something sustainable in
Speaker 1: d C? And I feel like Jared, just by dint
Speaker 1: of his career, just has such a great perspective on
Speaker 1: all that. Yeah, it's kind of a shame we didn't
Speaker 1: really get into the debt ceiling, but in one way,
Speaker 1: it's the perfect example of that, right, so the suspension
Speaker 1: is supposed to end by August, and like, clearly it's
Speaker 1: going to have to be dealt with at some point.
Speaker 1: But for years now, Congress has been suspending rather than
Speaker 1: actually raising the limit. So even if someone can make
Speaker 1: a rational argument for why they should permanently raise the limit,
Speaker 1: there's already you know, people are clearly reluctant to do that,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be interesting to see how that
Speaker 1: plays out. Well. It's also like, even more importantly, almost
Speaker 1: everyone will agree, especially if they're not in politics, that
Speaker 1: the law is bad, that the idea of like a
Speaker 1: statutory debt ceiling that's disconnected from the budget is not
Speaker 1: a good system. But it's the But we can't but
Speaker 1: we can't get rid of it. And there's various reasons
Speaker 1: we can't get rid of it, and there's various reasons
Speaker 1: no one has ever tried to like actually or there's
Speaker 1: been no real attempt to abolish it. But I do
Speaker 1: think you know, again, it speaks to the capital p
Speaker 1: politics of all this that here's this thing. It gets
Speaker 1: in the way. It almost created a crisis inn when
Speaker 1: people might think that it was going to lead to
Speaker 1: a default on the US debt. So it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of this weird, little annoying thing, but it speaks to
Speaker 1: where there is this um conflict between what makes sense
Speaker 1: on paper economically versus political will. It goes back to
Speaker 1: that theory versus practice point, which was sort of the
Speaker 1: foundation of our conversation. Uh, you know, this idea that
Speaker 1: even if you have a big new economic thought, actually
Speaker 1: putting it into practice and coming up with specific policies
Speaker 1: to enact it might be more difficult and does require,
Speaker 1: as Jared said, an intimate knowledge of the political economy
Speaker 1: and the way things actually were. Yeah, exactly right. And
Speaker 1: of course, so it's like this microcosm, but the bigger,
Speaker 1: you know, the bigger story is this sort of question
Speaker 1: of what can get passed on the spending side. And
Speaker 1: it's interesting to hear sort of Jared's perspective and also
Speaker 1: his I guess, I guess I would say translation or
Speaker 1: insight into President Biden's thinking about Okay, like if you
Speaker 1: want to like do this, like maybe economists can make
Speaker 1: this case and they probably can that a lot of
Speaker 1: this spending, particularly the investment spending, doesn't need to quote
Speaker 1: be paid for in the traditional sense. But it's interesting
Speaker 1: to hear this sort of the politics perspective that on
Speaker 1: some level, yes, it does, but I guess that's it's uh.
Speaker 1: I thought that was very useful. Yeah, I'm also curious
Speaker 1: to see what happens on healthcare because that's another topic
Speaker 1: that's politically loaded. There seems to be consensus building in
Speaker 1: the States that there is something wrong with the US
Speaker 1: healthcare system, but actually fixing it, I mean, as we
Speaker 1: seen over and over and over again, tends to be
Speaker 1: much more difficult. So that's also going to be an
Speaker 1: interesting thing to watch. Yeah. No, it should be an
Speaker 1: interesting summer to see, like what eventually what aventers, you know,
Speaker 1: that's it seems like that's the timeline that we're looking for. Okay,
Speaker 1: the next few months of negotiations and then maybe something
Speaker 1: gets passed in September or after that. So should have
Speaker 1: an interesting a few months ahead of us watching to
Speaker 1: see like what these policies get put into place. And
Speaker 1: as Jared said, you know, like okay, we have the stimulus,
Speaker 1: but it does feel like to some extent, the legacy
Speaker 1: of the Biden administration will be much you know, less
Speaker 1: about the recovery and more about what the what the
Speaker 1: sustained future economy. Uh looks like after that? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: on that happy note. Should we leave it there? Let's
Speaker 1: see it there. This has been another episode of The
Speaker 1: Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Tracy Alloway, and I'm Joe Wisntal. You
Speaker 1: could follow me on Twitter at the Stalwart. Follow our
Speaker 1: guest Twitter, Jared Bernstein. He's at econ Jared. Follow our
Speaker 1: producer Laura Carlson. She's at Laura M. Carlson. Follow the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg head of podcast, Francesco Levi at Francesco Today, and
Speaker 1: check out all of our podcasts at Bloomberg under the
Speaker 1: handle at podcasts. Thanks for listening.