The Audacity of Furman
Chris Hayes, quoting Steve Clemons, voices the left wing critique of Obama’s Furman pick:
But calling a spade a spade, it’s clear that Furman is no Dean Baker or Robert Blecker or Jared Bernstein—all important economists who have been far more right as of late than the Rubin crowd in anticipating the stress points in globalization, the housing bubble, trade, and the like.
Good point! Would it be asking too much for the Obama campaign to bring someone on board its paid economic policy team that brings with them an unabashed left-liberal perspective?
I think Will Wilkinson makes a good point on the politics/optics of this pick – at this point, Obama doesn’t really need to reassure those who want an “unabashed left-liberal perspective,” but instead throw some meat towards centrists who are likely to be impressed with Furman’s all around awesomness (oh yeah, and centrist/Brookings cred). And while I’ve come more around to the Baker/Bernstein crowd, it’s unclear if Obama really is closer to them than he his to Rubin/Furman types. After all, his initial economic policy ad visor was Austan Goolsbee, whose support for free trade caused no end of consternation for the campaign. Also, Furman made some noises about consulting with and talking to Bernstein and Jamie Galbraith, whose leftiness can not be impeached:
“My key mandate, which came directly from the senator, is to bring him a diverse set of voices and ideas, because that’s the kind of debate he likes to hear to make up his mind about his economic agenda,” Furman said. He named Rubin, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan Blinder as advisers the campaign would turn to.
Furman also named Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute and James Galbraith
It’s also important to note that the real policy space between the Summers/Rubin/Furman wing and the Bernstein/Galbraith/Baker wing has decreased radically in the past eight years. At this point, they can all agree on higher taxes on the rich, increased public investments, some form of universal health and increased regulation in the financial industry. Of course, there are detailed and marginal differences which matter greatly, and my aggregation of a wide range of policy thinkers into two groups is inevitably obscuring some crucial distinctions, but I think we can all agree that we are basically past the Rubin-Reich feuding that marked the Clinton years.
At this point, the central difference of outlook on trade seems almost stylistic. That’s because there’s very little good evidence to support the general left wing critique of trade (as opposed to specific trade agreements), namely, that it lowers wages for the lower and working classes. BUT, at the same time, the political support for anything resembling an ambitious trade agenda has totally collapsed. For one, there’s no way Doha is happening anytime soon, and those liberal advocates for free trade have come to realize that bilateral FTAs do little to bring about the global trading environment we desire, but do a lot to impose US standards on things like IP on smaller, weaker countries. So, hopefully, there can be rapprochement between the two sides – at least until Obama is in the White House, then they’ll start fighting again.
