View this email in your browser

AUGUST

**24, 2020**

Kuttner on TAP

Fiscal Follies in the Biden Campaign

****

Joe Biden has heartened progressives with his calls for levels of public
spending, well into the trillions, equal to the urgent needs at hand.
These include funds to address not just the pandemic, but climate
change, student debt, the caring economy, and the need to invest in
infrastructure and rebuild American supply chains and jobs.

If you add up Biden's proposals, they total at least $3.5 trillion,
and even more with commitments he added in his convention acceptance
speech.

But on the very eve of that address, Biden's top aide and transition
director Ted Kaufman rained on Biden's progressive parade in an
interview with

**The Wall Street Journal**
:
"When we get in, the pantry's going to be bare," said Kaufman. He
cited Trump's tax cuts and the cost of the pandemic, adding, "We're
going to have limited funds to do what we're going to do."

And Kaufman is the most progressive of Biden's inner circle. Notably,
in directing these comments to the

**Journal**, Kaufman was falling into the trap of thinking that
financial markets needed to be reassured that his man was not one of
those liberal spendthrifts.

So there you have it. Which Joe do we get?

The Federal Reserve will advance something like $9 trillion this year to
keep financial markets and stock prices afloat, while the rest of the
economy sinks. Unless Biden breaks with fiscal orthodoxy and invests the
scale of public funds that the crisis requires, short term and long, the
promise of a transformative progressive presidency is over before it
starts.

The fact that interest rates are close to zero courtesy of the Fed
opening the spigots (to the wrong people), despite a national debt now
equal to about 100 percent of GDP, shows that the old rules of thumb
about deficits, debts, interest rates, and needed public spending no
longer apply.

**The New Yorker** recently reported that Biden has been reading

**How Democracies Die**, by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. Good
start. Now he needs to read Stephanie Kelton on

**The Deficit Myth**
.
Or better yet, appoint her to head OMB.

To be an effective president, Biden needs to listen to the people
inspired by his call to a better American future, not to the usual
deficit hawks.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

[link removed]

The RNC Will Be a Strange Mix of Denial and Terror

Each installment of Trump's convention will resemble nothing so much
as an evening of Fox News. BY PAUL WALDMAN

Uninformed Consent

Major universities keep putting students at needless risk, and then
reversing course. Higher ed is in a tough spot, but that's no excuse
for dumb decisions and bad ethics. BY FRANCOIS FURSTENBERG

'We're Outsourcing Our Decision-Making to Machines'

In her new film 'Coded Bias,' filmmaker Shalini Kantayya explores
how algorithms deployed in our most essential institutions are rife with
human biases. BY REENA SHAH

Unsanitized: COVID Disaster Hurting Response to Other Disasters

Plus, will there be a relief bill? This is The COVID-19 Daily Report for
August 24, 2020. BY DAVID DAYEN

To receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, click here to
subscribe. 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

Copyright (C) 2020 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States