Top White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein
Jared Bernstein The Hill’s Morning Report – Presented by Facebook – Cheney tracks leadership; Dems To Punish Greene Sunday Shows Preview: New COVID-19 Variants Spread In US; Redditors Shake Wall Street With Gamestop Stocks Biden’s Economic Team Gets More Mixed Reviews From Senate Republicans On Friday, pushed back public criticism from former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers, who expressed concern in a Washington Post about the risks to inflation posed by President Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion coronavirus proposal.
Bernstein, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters at a White House press conference that he disagreed with Summers’ opinion and that the former Treasury Secretary was “ downright wrong ” in suggesting that officials from the Biden’s administration were dismissive of inflation. risks.
Bernstein also held to the White House position that the risk of doing too little outweighs the risk of a large aid package.
“I think the idea now is that we have to hit back hard, we have to hit back hard if we are to finally get behind this double crisis of the pandemic and the economic … pain it has caused,” Bernstein said. “We have consistently argued that the risks of doing too little far outweigh the risks of getting big, giving families and businesses the relief they need to finally put this virus behind us.”
Summers, who was a top economic adviser to former President Obama and served as Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration, wrote in the Post that such a large stimulus package could “create inflationary pressures we have not seen in a generation.”
“This will be manageable if monetary and fiscal policies can be quickly adjusted to address the problem,” Summers wrote. “But given the commitments made by the Fed, the fact that government officials are rejecting even the possibility of inflation, and the difficulties in mobilizing Congressional support for tax increases or austerity, there is a risk that inflation expectations will soar.”
Bernstein repeatedly objected to that claim on Friday, saying Summers was wrong. Bernstein also said that Biden’s economic team was unanimous in the need to pass on a robust package to address the crisis.
“With regard to Larry in his piece, it’s just plain wrong for our team to dismiss the inflationary risks,” said Bernstein. “Janet Yellen
Janet Louise Yellen Yellen Calls Regulator Meeting GameStop Top Democrats are urging Yellen to take tough action against dark money groups GOP courts Biden, indicating he may be moving without them. is our finance minister. She knows about inflationary risks. “
Yellen is a former chairman of the Federal Reserve.
The briefing took place after Biden made comments pushing for the speedy passage of his $ 1.9 trillion proposal, indicating that he is ready to move forward without Republican backing after seeking bipartisan approval for a bill for coronavirus. He warned that the economy is still clearly “in trouble”, citing new figures from the Labor Department showing that employers added just 49,000 jobs in January.