Letter to the editor: Democrats’ fake economists

OPINION:

Imagine closing your eyes and hearing someone say: “[W]hat we believe needs to happen … is [for] the energy companies … to reduce retail prices” during a world-wide energy shortage like the one we have now (“White House doubles down on calls for Big Oil to reduce profits as Democrats fret over OPEC cuts,” Web, Oct. 6, 2022). You would presume the speaker had no clue about market economics. Yet these were the words of Brian Deese, the White House’s top economic adviser despite having no apparent background in the field of economics (having instead majored in political science and law in college).   

Ditto for Jared Bernstein, a member of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, who along with Mr. Deese regularly appears on the Sunday morning talk shows pontificating on matters of economic policy. While Mr. Bernstein has degrees in four fields—music, social work, philosophy and social welfare—none of them is in economics. 

Moreover, this tendency for non-economists to advise Democratic politicians on economic policy goes back a long way. For example, prior to his current position, Mr. Deese served as a “senior policy analyst for economic policy” to Gene Sperling, another faux economist, who himself served as national economic adviser to two Democratic presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, despite having no degree in economics.

Like Mr. Deese, Mr. Sperling majored in political science and law in his college days. And this cycle doesn’t end there. Mr. Sperling once worked for Robert Reich, another lawyer who served as the party’s economic guru during the 1970s and ‘80s (and who infamously urged the U.S. to follow the ill-fated Japanese industrial policy model) despite having degrees only in history and law. 

Perhaps the recent dismal performance of our nation’s economy can be explained by the president’s reliance upon “economic advisers” who are not economists.

ROBERT ZWIRB