Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: I have that two thousand and eight feeling. The excitement
Speaker 2: is real. I think it's happening from the ground up.
Speaker 3: I feel two thousand and eight excitement right now, and
Speaker 3: I think we have a real opportunity here America.
Speaker 4: Hope is making a comeback. Welcome to our Democratic National
Speaker 4: Convention edition of voter Nomics, the Bloomberg podcast where politics
Speaker 4: and Markets collide. All year, we've been talking and talking
Speaker 4: about how voters around the world have the ability to
Speaker 4: move markets, countries, and economies like never before in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four, and we're focusing now on US voters ahead
Speaker 4: of the November election. I'm Stephanie Flanders, hosting from Chicago,
Speaker 4: where the convention is underway, and with me from the
Speaker 4: Bloomberg White House team. Very glad to say senior reporter
Speaker 4: Josh Wingrove, thanks for being here, Thank you for having me. Well,
Speaker 4: we're taking this on Wednesday, we should say, so it's
Speaker 4: more than halfway through the convention. I think we're knee
Speaker 4: deep in vibes. There's been a lot of discussion about
Speaker 4: the vibes. So it's not a week for policy wonts,
Speaker 4: but we have been doing our best to resist that
Speaker 4: with round tables with some key figures in the party
Speaker 4: and advisors to Kamala Harris at the Bloomberg Hub where
Speaker 4: we're sitting right now, which is just down the road
Speaker 4: from the convention hall. But inside, I would say it's
Speaker 4: been a week for Democrats to get all fired up
Speaker 4: and potentially excite some voters sitting at home with this
Speaker 4: just very recently improved ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walks. Josh,
Speaker 4: you are very young, but you're not so young. I
Speaker 4: think you probably still can remain the two thousand and
Speaker 4: eight is making a comeback here.
Speaker 2: Not as young as I used to be. I remember
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight very well. Hope is making a
Speaker 2: comeback if you talk to the people here, which is
Speaker 2: to say, Democrats are indulging themselves and letting them speak aloud.
Speaker 2: This thought that, oh my gosh, could the sort of
Speaker 2: broad coalition that elected and swept Obama to power sixteen
Speaker 2: years ago come together again? And of course that's a
Speaker 2: big change from a month ago when Democrats were pretty
Speaker 2: despondent in sort of a public friendly war about whether
Speaker 2: to you know, dump or pressure Joe Biden to step away.
Speaker 2: But there is a sense that Harris has momentum, and
Speaker 2: in particular, I think we're seeing that sort of change
Speaker 2: expectations depending on what you ask. Certainly, in the House,
Speaker 2: Democrats seem very confident that they're going to have a
Speaker 2: really good shot at taking back the House of Representatives,
Speaker 2: making Kakim Jeffries the speaker. And from there it gets
Speaker 2: a little mess here. And so we you know, we've talked,
Speaker 2: for instance here with the Pennsylvania governor. He thinks his
Speaker 2: state is both the tipping point state, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: to say, the one that will decide things and a
Speaker 2: toss up. And so it just goes to show you,
Speaker 2: like how we're really down to the wire here. But
Speaker 2: you're right, from a policy perspective, it's you know, it's
Speaker 2: not just a ViBe's election at the convention. We're having
Speaker 2: a ViBe's election in general.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I was very struck watching the former President
Speaker 4: Obama on Tuesday night his speech here in Chicago, which
Speaker 4: definitely had allusions to the electrifying one that he gave
Speaker 4: in Boston in two thousand and four. As a little note,
Speaker 4: Senator I was lucky enough to that was the last
Speaker 4: convention I was at. But as you say, there's no
Speaker 4: getting around the fact, even with all these great vibes,
Speaker 4: the country is still split down the middle. And you
Speaker 4: have maybe forty six percent of voters who had died
Speaker 4: in the world supporters Donald Trump, maybe even a bit
Speaker 4: more enthusiastic now than they were a month ago, and
Speaker 4: something close to that, strongly supporting the Democrats and certainly
Speaker 4: opposing Donald Trump. So just that small middle ground to
Speaker 4: play for. You mentioned Governor Josh Shapiro. We had an
Speaker 4: event with him that you were at here in the
Speaker 4: Hub just this morning, and you know, he's the governor
Speaker 4: of the must win swingy as state of all and
Speaker 4: this is how he described the situation.
Speaker 5: Our last two presidential election races in Pennsylvania settled by
Speaker 5: about a point or less forty four thousand votes and
Speaker 5: eighty thousand votes in a state of thirteen million people
Speaker 5: over nine million registered voters. So the fact that races
Speaker 5: are close in Pennsylvania is really not something that is
Speaker 5: surprising as we look forward with that history, I think
Speaker 5: it's important to note that the gap that existed between
Speaker 5: Trump and Biden has really been closed. I think your
Speaker 5: outlets have all done polling, maybe it's plus one minus one.
Speaker 5: I think we're statistically even at this point. And what
Speaker 5: I think Vice President Harris and Governor Wallas have done
Speaker 5: really effectively is build the coalition back together and be
Speaker 5: in a position where we're what seventy seven days seventy
Speaker 5: eight days out and really be, as I describe it,
Speaker 5: on the forty nine yard line in Pennsylvania. You can
Speaker 5: pick up forty eight or forty nine yards. It's that
Speaker 5: last yard and a half to get on the other
Speaker 5: side of the field that is really really tough. How
Speaker 5: do you do that? Obviously, we've got important urban centers
Speaker 5: in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The Philly suburbs are incredibly important,
Speaker 5: and as we proved in my election and others have
Speaker 5: as well, these rural areas are areas where Democrats have
Speaker 5: to compete. We know in twenty sixteen we didn't do
Speaker 5: as well as we needed to in those areas. I
Speaker 5: will tell you I think those rural areas are fired
Speaker 5: up for Donald Trump. I don't think we should pretend
Speaker 5: that they're not. But what I have experienced in just
Speaker 5: the last few weeks that Kama Harris has been leading
Speaker 5: the ticket is when I'm in those communities and I
Speaker 5: camp out there, I spend a lot of time there
Speaker 5: as governor. They'll come over to me and say, hey,
Speaker 5: what do you think of her? You know her, what's
Speaker 5: the deal? And I say that in no way to
Speaker 5: be disparaging. I say that because there's a genuine interest
Speaker 5: and curiosity in her candidacy. And that's a good sign.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you what else is a really good sign.
Speaker 5: She and Tim showed up there. What was it three
Speaker 5: four days ago? I think it was on Sunday, if
Speaker 5: I'm not mistaken. In Beaver County. They went to one
Speaker 5: of these rural communities, think like kind of rural area
Speaker 5: outside of Pittsburgh, and they went and talked about cutting costs,
Speaker 5: and they went and talked about economic issues. If you
Speaker 5: remember back, you know, we all remember Barack Obama having
Speaker 5: huge rallies in Philly. What a lot of people don't
Speaker 5: remember is his first rally was in Beaver County. That's
Speaker 5: a county the Democrats have been losing for years. I won,
Speaker 5: and that's an area where we have to be competitive.
Speaker 5: And so the fact that people are curious about her candidcy,
Speaker 5: the fact that she showed up there and talked about
Speaker 5: issues on their minds. Really really gives me a lot
Speaker 5: of hope and OPTI miser for that last that last
Speaker 5: yard and a half. It's so difficult to come by
Speaker 5: in our stay.
Speaker 4: Gummor Shapiro was was sort of cautiously optimistic. He saw
Speaker 4: a lot of energy on the ground, but that there's
Speaker 4: a lot more for them to do, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Harris herself is trying to pump the brakes
Speaker 2: as well, because it's good to be confident, but complacency
Speaker 2: is a different animal. That's what they're worried about. You know,
Speaker 2: I think this is all happening at unprecedented speed. I
Speaker 2: think we shouldn't lose sight of that. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: one of the arguments a month and a half ago
Speaker 2: was that they're simply for keeping Biden, was that there
Speaker 2: simply wasn't time to build the plane in mid air
Speaker 2: that they are now building. And so the you know,
Speaker 2: I think for Harris, she has inherited a party that
Speaker 2: has done a couple of things. Number One, rallied completely
Speaker 2: around her in the matter of an hour, it felt
Speaker 2: like on that Sunday. Another thing is that her position
Speaker 2: at the top of the ticket has also really taken
Speaker 2: a lot of states off board that were competitive now,
Speaker 2: so we're gonna have a more focused election, whereas previously
Speaker 2: Trump was thinking he was going to break through in
Speaker 2: you know, Minnesota, Virginia, maybe New York, New Jersey and
Speaker 2: what might be sort of a fantastical.
Speaker 4: That's so we're going to see a lot of big
Speaker 4: rallies in.
Speaker 2: So we're snabbing right back down to what it was
Speaker 2: about seven or eight swing states. I think broadly position
Speaker 2: for Harris now. The question is how much meat do
Speaker 2: I want to put on this bone. She has taken
Speaker 2: steps to keep doors open, not close them, including if
Speaker 2: that leaves egg on her face by saying forget what
Speaker 2: I said five years ago, I actually believe the opposite now.
Speaker 2: So I think that is the level set that we
Speaker 2: should expect for the next seven years so days whatever
Speaker 2: the campaign will be, which, by the way, in other states,
Speaker 2: it's only half that with early voting kicking in something
Speaker 2: soon here, I would expect her to continue to risk
Speaker 2: embarrassment by backtracking on policies to open pathways for her
Speaker 2: or leave open the question of what she things, rather
Speaker 2: than her pinning a policy list on the wall and
Speaker 2: saying this is what I stand for. It they don't
Speaker 2: think that's their path.
Speaker 4: That was interesting. So we had We're sitting in the
Speaker 4: room where we've had some of these events at the
Speaker 4: Bloomberg Hub, and there were two quite senior policy advisers,
Speaker 4: d Kamala Harris who spoke to us, Harris who spoke
Speaker 4: to us just a few hours ago, one of whom
Speaker 4: had been her chief of staff when she was in
Speaker 4: the Senate. And it was striking how little information they
Speaker 4: could give when you talk about putting meat on the bones.
Speaker 4: We had this kind of sketch of her economic proposals
Speaker 4: last week. When are we going to find out how
Speaker 4: she's going to pay for this renewal of the child
Speaker 4: tax credit and the support for homeowners? And then I
Speaker 4: realized that they were referring to that speech as their
Speaker 4: most detailed speech that they were going to give, really
Speaker 4: and it just brought home to me how many questions
Speaker 4: there are unanswered, and crucially this debate with Donald Trump
Speaker 4: on September tenth. I mean, we were asking these advisers
Speaker 4: about foreign policy, Josh, do you expect to have any
Speaker 4: substance on what President Kamala Harris how she would approach
Speaker 4: foreign policy between now and the debate, I.
Speaker 2: Think it's a coin flip about whether they're going to
Speaker 2: try to put something in the window before the debate.
Speaker 2: What they have said is look at her record, So
Speaker 2: let's talk about a record on foreign policy. Hawk on Ukraine,
Speaker 2: for sure, she would continue Biden's approach of seeing it
Speaker 2: as a priority for the US not only to send
Speaker 2: support to Ukraine directly, but to continue to try to
Speaker 2: muster an alliance and sort of global coalition to support
Speaker 2: Ukraine in its fight against Russia. So I think that
Speaker 2: one is clear. I don't expect an in daylight on
Speaker 2: that one. In Gaza, it's more murky. She has tried
Speaker 2: to sell the same policy as Biden in a different way.
Speaker 2: For instance, she calls for a ceasefire and then says
Speaker 2: Hamas has to agree to it, whereas Biden says Hamas
Speaker 2: has to agree to the ceasefire. So it's just little
Speaker 2: differences like this. But yeah, difference not really a difference.
Speaker 2: There's a rhetorical difference. But in their live's election, rhetoric
Speaker 2: is perhaps everything. But you're right, we were sitting here
Speaker 2: looking at, you know, this small bone with flicks of
Speaker 2: meat on it and saying where's the rest of it?
Speaker 2: And they're saying it's right in front of you. Enjoyed.
Speaker 4: This is the detail to go back to where we started.
Speaker 4: But you had raised a wild card in that conversation
Speaker 4: with the advisors, which I have to admit I'd not
Speaker 4: been focusing so much on because it sounds so so
Speaker 4: much wishful thinking. But you know, this possibility that the
Speaker 4: Democrats could win the Senate and House of Representatives as
Speaker 4: well as the presidency, is that really plausible? I mean,
Speaker 4: certainly the people who had taught me through some of
Speaker 4: these races earlier in the year, it just looked like
Speaker 4: a big ass, particularly in the Senate, because every Senate
Speaker 4: seat being contested pretty much is democratic. They can't afford
Speaker 4: to lose even one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bad map for them this year. They're
Speaker 2: going to lose West Virginia. They have fifty one seats.
Speaker 4: Now, I guess we should just remind people outside the
Speaker 4: states way the elections.
Speaker 2: Wait, yeah, why the map is the crowd? This is
Speaker 2: the grash course. They there are very few senators in
Speaker 2: America who represent a party other than the dominant party
Speaker 2: in that state. In other words, you got red states.
Speaker 2: You have blue states. They didn't have two red senators
Speaker 2: or two blue senators. Very few divided. West Virginia's divide
Speaker 2: and Joe Manchiin isn't running again, and that is no
Speaker 2: one expects that to seat to stick with the Democrats.
Speaker 2: It'll flip hard to the Republicans.
Speaker 4: Because many people didn't consider him to be a temper
Speaker 4: correct correct.
Speaker 2: He was sort of a dying breed of red state democrat.
Speaker 2: And so now that the starting point is fifty to fifty,
Speaker 2: it basically all comes down to more or less Ohio
Speaker 2: and Montana, two red states where Democrats have incumbent senators
Speaker 2: shared Brown and Ohio John Tester and Montana. We're trying
Speaker 2: to hold on basically running at arms length from Harris
Speaker 2: and even more and when it was Biden, they were
Speaker 2: running it miles length from Biden, trying to sort of
Speaker 2: squeak by still against Democratic headwinds that have been shifting.
Speaker 2: So can it happened for Democrats? Can this wave that
Speaker 2: is maybe building or maybe cresting, It's unclear. If it's
Speaker 2: just a building wave that will continue as momentum, then
Speaker 2: Democrats might become the dog that caught the car and
Speaker 2: then suddenly they in that scenario would be almost certain
Speaker 2: that they would have the House by a fairly healthy margin.
Speaker 2: Maybe Harris gets selected, and then of course, maybe they
Speaker 2: sweep by in the Senate with a fifty to fifty
Speaker 2: tie that the Vice President Tim Walls, Harris's running mate,
Speaker 2: could split ties in so they can ram stuff through.
Speaker 2: Suddenly they get what's called a reconciliation bill, which is
Speaker 2: a grab bag of stuff that they can push through.
Speaker 2: You can do one of those a year or so,
Speaker 2: and this, you know, now it's a question of wish list.
Speaker 2: Right So right now they're like quite a long way
Speaker 2: away from that, correct Right So, right now, beating Donald
Speaker 2: Trump is enough. And we have seen not a hint
Speaker 2: really of policy dispute among Democrats at this convention. They
Speaker 2: are perfectly fine to break out the same song sheet
Speaker 2: and you have a show of unity. They can continue
Speaker 2: to do that quite easily if Republicans hold at least
Speaker 2: one chamber, because you have a boogeyman, and by definition
Speaker 2: you're constrained by what has to be a by part
Speaker 2: as an agreement. If they catch the car, if they
Speaker 2: get all three, if this is some kind of wave
Speaker 2: that's been building, then Harris is going to have to
Speaker 2: decide what she.
Speaker 4: I think lack of opposition is probably a problem that
Speaker 4: they would like to face. But I'm struck that it's
Speaker 4: the one thing, even with all these good vibes, it's
Speaker 4: the one thing that they do seem to be superstitious
Speaker 4: about even thinking about. In the UK and actually I
Speaker 4: think quite a lot of other countries, the custom in
Speaker 4: any election is not to jinx it and never talk
Speaker 4: as if you assume.
Speaker 2: That you're going to win, or assume.
Speaker 4: Here it's mandatory even if you don't have a chance
Speaker 4: in hell. You have to talk describe yourself as the
Speaker 4: next president or the next senator. So we will see,
Speaker 4: but gosh, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 4: So on the sidelines of the convention, in my continued
Speaker 4: efforts to inject substance into the vibes, I sat down
Speaker 4: with Heather Bouchet, an economist who previously served as the
Speaker 4: president and CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth
Speaker 4: and at the Center for American Progress, among other things.
Speaker 4: She does now currently serve as a member of President
Speaker 4: Joe Biden's Council of Economic Advisors, but she spoke to
Speaker 4: me very much in her personal capacity, and what I
Speaker 4: wanted to hear from her was what she thought about
Speaker 4: this ticket and the emerging economic plan in so far
Speaker 4: as we've seen it from Vice President Harris Heather, thank
Speaker 4: you very much for doing this. I should also ask
Speaker 4: you with this your first convention.
Speaker 3: No, this is my second convention. But now I'm very
Speaker 3: excited to be here, and you know, God to hear
Speaker 3: the presidents speak last night and to see actually the
Speaker 3: Vice president speaking. You know, she talked a little bit
Speaker 3: about her economics. But it's very exciting to be able
Speaker 3: to be a part of this historic moment.
Speaker 4: And did you always know you were coming? I just
Speaker 4: wondered whether if you, like me, were thinking a couple
Speaker 4: of months ago that this was not necessarily going to
Speaker 4: be a fun event to attend.
Speaker 3: I had made my reservations many many months ago. I
Speaker 3: think it's important, especially for those on the ECON team
Speaker 3: in general. You know, I think about economics, to see
Speaker 3: what people are talking about in terms of the economy,
Speaker 3: what are the questions on people's minds, and that helps
Speaker 3: us think about what kinds of policy issues we want
Speaker 3: to focus on.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: I mean, you are you're sitting in the White House
Speaker 4: or I guess adjoining the White House because most people
Speaker 4: end up there's no room in the White House for
Speaker 4: most of the officials who work there. I'm fascinated just
Speaker 4: on a personal level, how it's been to be sitting
Speaker 4: there the last few weeks as the election has just
Speaker 4: been turned on its head. I mean, how has that
Speaker 4: felt like on the inside.
Speaker 3: Well, I can see a couple of things. I Mean,
Speaker 3: the reality is is that the economy is this huge
Speaker 3: HiT's this huge beast, and there's so much that has
Speaker 3: been moving forward, and so I have been really focused on,
Speaker 3: you know, watching where the numbers are coming in, what's
Speaker 3: happening with jobs and inflation and all of these sorts
Speaker 3: of questions, and you know, in thinking about how the
Speaker 3: policy agenda that the President and the Vice President put
Speaker 3: out many months ago when they put forth the budget,
Speaker 3: they are teeing up a whole set of policies that
Speaker 3: we want to do to make sure that we continue
Speaker 3: to see an economy that delivers for working families. So
Speaker 3: those are some of the questions that continue to be
Speaker 3: important in front and center.
Speaker 4: Regardless of he's on the top of the ticket. All Right,
Speaker 4: it sounds like I'm not gonna be able to get
Speaker 4: you on all the sort of personal misgivings or not
Speaker 4: of what's happened. But I mean on that point, and
Speaker 4: you sounded a little bit like it even just then.
Speaker 4: You know, one criticism that's been leveled at the was
Speaker 4: leveled at the Biden Harris campaign was that there was
Speaker 4: too much focus in those campaign speeches on the past achievements,
Speaker 4: and he almost seemed to be sometimes telling people they
Speaker 4: should feel better about the economy than they actually were.
Speaker 4: I mean, do you recognize that as a criticism.
Speaker 3: Gosh, looking back over the past four years, the United
Speaker 3: States and around the world, we've all been through the Ringer,
Speaker 3: this global pandemic. It upended economies. We saw how because
Speaker 3: of these global supply chains that were so fragile, we
Speaker 3: had these really big price bikes because you know, people
Speaker 3: couldn't get to work and things couldn't get made, and
Speaker 3: we saw all of these challenges, and I think what
Speaker 3: I've learned as an economist is that it takes a
Speaker 3: while for that to work through an economy. But it
Speaker 3: also you know, I think you hear people being frustrated
Speaker 3: that things aren't better as quickly as maybe they would like,
Speaker 3: or and I think this is really an important piece
Speaker 3: of the puzzle for a lot of people. The economy
Speaker 3: wasn't working before the pandemic. You know, here in the
Speaker 3: United States, we've had half century of rising economic inequality.
Speaker 3: Families were struggling with affording care and education and in
Speaker 3: housing and all of these things pre pandemic. And there
Speaker 3: was this moment during the pandemic where policymakers gay families
Speaker 3: a lot of support, and a lot of people change jobs,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of opportunity. We've actually seen three
Speaker 3: years now of historic new business startups. And yet I
Speaker 3: think you know now that much of that aid has
Speaker 3: started to fade or has been pulled back. I think
Speaker 3: people are sort of like, well, wait a minute, how
Speaker 3: is this new economy going to work for me and
Speaker 3: my family? And so I think the fact that a
Speaker 3: lot of investments have been made, but they aren't quite
Speaker 3: being being felt yet.
Speaker 4: Even in a normal circumstance, if you had vice president
Speaker 4: running for president, there's always that balance that he or
Speaker 4: she would have to strike between talking up the achievements
Speaker 4: of the administration they were involved with, but also pointing
Speaker 4: to the unfinished business. And I guess that I guess
Speaker 4: there's a feeling that with the Biden campaign that there
Speaker 4: was too much focus on all the great things you've done,
Speaker 4: the big bits of unfinished business. I mean, you've touched
Speaker 4: on some of them.
Speaker 3: So first of all, I think one big piece of
Speaker 3: unfinished business that I think does need to be mentioned
Speaker 3: is that so much of this administration has done has
Speaker 3: been about investing in the United States all across America,
Speaker 3: investing in communities, investing in new manufacturing capacity, investing in
Speaker 3: making and clean energy economy. All of that needs to continue.
Speaker 3: But there are these big ticket items that we haven't
Speaker 3: been able to that still need work. And so one
Speaker 3: of those, of course is housing. We've seen challenges in
Speaker 3: insufficient housing supply. We've seen that it just did cost
Speaker 3: too much for families. It was really exciting to see
Speaker 3: the Vice President come out with a set of policies
Speaker 3: it would increase housing supply. We also need to make
Speaker 3: sure that for those families that have kids that in particular,
Speaker 3: that they get the help and the support they need.
Speaker 3: And so I was also really excited to see that
Speaker 3: the Vice President came out with a pretty robust plan
Speaker 3: to provide an expansion the child tax credit. For children
Speaker 3: in their first.
Speaker 4: Year of RUSS but also quite expensive.
Speaker 3: Certainly well supporting families.
Speaker 4: You didn't talk about how it's going to be paid for.
Speaker 3: She did talk about, though, increasing the corporate tax rate
Speaker 3: to twenty eight percent, which has been a part of
Speaker 3: the budget that she and the President worked one.
Speaker 4: Pile of the budget before you committed to increasing the
Speaker 4: under the child tax credit.
Speaker 3: It was, but I think it's signals that she has
Speaker 3: committed to making sure that we fix the tax system
Speaker 3: in the United States so that it is more fair,
Speaker 3: so that corporations pay their fair share. And you know,
Speaker 3: we'll have to see where her campaign goes and everything
Speaker 3: that certainly is a part of the budget. In that
Speaker 3: process which she has been a part of in the
Speaker 3: White House, there has been a robust agenda to raise
Speaker 3: taxes at the top. The President has long made this
Speaker 3: commitment to not increase taxes on I mean, making anyone
Speaker 3: making less than four hundred thousand dollars a year. But
Speaker 3: what the President is shown through those budgets is that
Speaker 3: you actually can do that math. It is possible to
Speaker 3: have a robust tax agenda to be able to pay
Speaker 3: for things like making sure that families have that tax benefit.
Speaker 3: And of course that's in contrast to the proposals that
Speaker 3: you know, Donald Trump is put forward, which are just
Speaker 3: you know, again and again tax cuts for the very
Speaker 3: wealthiest on the backs of the middle class that are
Speaker 3: not going to lead to the kinds of growth or
Speaker 3: improvements in middle class well being that I think we
Speaker 3: will see under.
Speaker 4: I mean, one of his proposals which was not so
Speaker 4: directly focused on the rich and was many economists that
Speaker 4: just sort of greeted as being totally stupid, was about
Speaker 4: not taxing tips. And now Kamala Harris has also endorsed
Speaker 4: that proposal, So I mean, that is one that surely
Speaker 4: is an economist, you wouldn't necessarily think it was a
Speaker 4: good idea.
Speaker 3: Well, certainly, you know the vice president's come out for
Speaker 3: the President's come out for it. I think that there
Speaker 3: has long been a challenge for low wage workers in
Speaker 3: this country, and you know, certainly both the President and
Speaker 3: Vice President been very clear that we need to raise
Speaker 3: them inimum wage. We need to make sure that those
Speaker 3: workers that you know serve food for us in restaurants
Speaker 3: alocassic country, and you know, make sure that you're.
Speaker 4: Going to cut taxes just if it's called a tip,
Speaker 4: but not if it's called regular wages.
Speaker 3: This is part of a larger package to make sure
Speaker 3: that those workers are paid a fair and days pay.
Speaker 4: Another proposal that was in her speech in North Carolina recently,
Speaker 4: which was the sort of first hints at some of
Speaker 4: her economic proposals, was as a push against price gouging,
Speaker 4: which where she seemed to suggest certainly in the speech
Speaker 4: she talked about price controls in groceries and key goods.
Speaker 4: So I'm just again that's something where economists, even people
Speaker 4: who've done relatively little economists economics, just doesn't sound like
Speaker 4: a good idea when something is in short supply to
Speaker 4: stop producers from raising the price.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I mean, I'll see a couple of things
Speaker 3: on this. I mean, first of all, now I think
Speaker 3: what she was, what I heard her talking about the
Speaker 3: speech and the fact she and the stuff that she
Speaker 3: wrote about there is that you know, we know that
Speaker 3: prices are too high.
Speaker 2: We know that.
Speaker 3: You know, we've seen over the past year grocery prices
Speaker 3: have increased by just over percent one point one percent.
Speaker 3: That's down from increasing by thirteen percent, you know, back
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two. So certainly there's been progress on that,
Speaker 3: but we have seen that the groceries have not brought
Speaker 3: prices down, And I think what she has been focused
Speaker 3: on is that there are too many corporate actors that
Speaker 3: have been acting in bad fate. They haven't been passing
Speaker 3: on their lower prices onto consumers. And of course it
Speaker 3: is the case that there are price gouging laws and
Speaker 3: states all across the country, including in Texas. And in fact,
Speaker 3: what she has proposed is similar to what Republicans in
Speaker 3: the Senate have proposed. Now we know that in this economy,
Speaker 3: making sure that markets are competitive so that they can
Speaker 3: benefit consumers and workers and families and communities is a
Speaker 3: really important part of the economic agenda. Things have become
Speaker 3: far tooconomically concentrated, and it does mean that making sure
Speaker 3: that bad faith actors can't take advantage of the situation
Speaker 3: is a really important part of the policy agenda.
Speaker 4: I guess that just seems a bit of a disconnect
Speaker 4: because a lot of the discussions, the sort of explanations
Speaker 4: we've had since you know, she talked in the speech
Speaker 4: about price controls, we talked about groceries. It was in
Speaker 4: the context of talking about the kind of things you've
Speaker 4: just talked about, you know, the big rise in grocery
Speaker 4: prices over the last few years. But then when when
Speaker 4: her advisors have spoken about the details, she suggested that
Speaker 4: it would really only be in very specific sort of
Speaker 4: natural disaster hurricane in the local market. You stop the
Speaker 4: local grocery from like gouging the people there, and that's
Speaker 4: that we're doing that, which arguably you could do anyway
Speaker 4: with the rules that are already in place. It is
Speaker 4: very different from addressing the overall rise in the grocery
Speaker 4: prices over the last couple of years. So it sort
Speaker 4: of feels like there's a disconnect between the rhetorics surrounding it,
Speaker 4: and then when cornered what the proposal actually is.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that we start from understanding that the
Speaker 3: pandemic was different, right. We know that that led to
Speaker 3: a lot of supply side challenges, and we know that,
Speaker 3: you know, and again there's there are laws around the
Speaker 3: country on price gouging, because at some points in time,
Speaker 3: there are challenges in these markets, in various kinds of markets.
Speaker 3: But it sounds like her proposal is focused on making
Speaker 3: sure that there aren't bad faith actors and that the
Speaker 3: federal government has the capacity to take steps. And again
Speaker 3: this is consistent with Senate, with proposals that Republicans in
Speaker 3: the Senate have also put forward.
Speaker 4: You know, you look at some of these proposals, for
Speaker 4: example on housing, you know, many people would applaud it.
Speaker 4: They talk about it being a ymbi agenda, you know,
Speaker 4: saying yes in my backyard, pushing through building of housing
Speaker 4: and increasing the supply as well as helping on the
Speaker 4: demands of helping people of fort housing. It's a pretty
Speaker 4: activist agenda, and it involves kind of going into local
Speaker 4: areas and pushing through development plans. At the same time
Speaker 4: as you're putt quite a lot of money into people's
Speaker 4: pockets through the child tax credit. We don't know how
Speaker 4: it's going to be paid for. I mean, the criticism
Speaker 4: from the Republican side that this is a very progressive,
Speaker 4: quite interventionist, activist president, potentially Kamala Harris, that's right, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I wouldn't. I wouldn't accept that criticism, right,
Speaker 3: you know, coming from the Republican side. And you look
Speaker 3: at the policy agenda that Donald Trump is put forward,
Speaker 3: and you know, you see him using the tools of
Speaker 3: government to benefit those at the top of the income distribution,
Speaker 3: to benefit the wealthy, him using the power of government
Speaker 3: to put in place policies that will raise costs for
Speaker 3: consumers all across the country. So it's it's in whose
Speaker 3: interest are you using these these tools in these levers?
Speaker 3: And you know what, I what I see the Vice
Speaker 3: President putting together an agenda to do in in a
Speaker 3: very robust way and consistent with the work that she's
Speaker 3: done over the past four years as Vice president, is
Speaker 3: to make sure that government is working to build the
Speaker 3: middle class, to make sure that prices are fair, to
Speaker 3: make sure that people had economic opportunities. So it's not
Speaker 3: a question of whether government is intervening, it's on whose
Speaker 3: behalf and in whose interest they're intervening.
Speaker 4: Finally, very briefly, you said it was your second convention
Speaker 4: apart from Kamala Harris's speech, which I guess everyone's supposed
Speaker 4: to say, is that highlight the end of the week.
Speaker 4: Who are you looking forward to seeing?
Speaker 3: I mean, I will say I worked on Hillary Clinton's
Speaker 3: transition team, and so I got to see her speak
Speaker 3: last night, and it was it was really beautiful and amazing,
Speaker 3: and to see how far we've come since she ran
Speaker 3: for office, and to see how excited everybody is about
Speaker 3: what's to come was just it was really moving to
Speaker 3: hear her speak.
Speaker 4: I'm excited economist, Heatasha. Thank you very much, Thank you
Speaker 4: thanks for listening to this week's special Voter Nomics from Chicago.
Speaker 4: This episode was hosted by me Stephanie Flanders, who was
Speaker 4: produced by Samosadi, with production support and sound designed by
Speaker 4: Moses and Brendan Francis Noonan is our executive producer and
Speaker 4: Sage Bowman is head of Popcarve and special thanks in
Speaker 4: this episode goes to Josh Wingrove, Heather Bouchet, Christi Cally,
Speaker 4: and all of Bloomberg's team here in Chicago. Please, if
Speaker 4: you like the show, go rate and review it.