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**JUNE 25, 2021**

Kuttner on TAP

The Sour Grapes of Jason Furman

****

I've reported on how Larry Summers, denied a job in the Biden
administration, has been providing aid, comfort, and ammunition to
right-wing critics by blasting Biden's long-overdue public-investment
program as too large and dangerously inflationary. Summers's less
well-known colleague from the Obama administration, Jason Furman, has
been doing the same, in spades, and deserves a closer look.

Furman is a protégé of Robert Rubin. He ran the Rubin-funded Hamilton
Project housed at Brookings, which has mostly sponsored small-bore
initiatives that would make little difference in the grotesque
inequality of income and wealth, and provide no threat to the deeper
structure of American capitalism.

Furman became economic director of the Obama campaign in mid-2008,
correctly signaling that the Obama presidency would be a disappointment
to economic progressives. From there, he became Summers's deputy on
the National Economic Council and then chair of the Council of Economic
Advisers in 2013.

In recent years, Furman has called for a reduction in the corporate
income tax rate, opposed student debt relief, and warned of the
inflationary effects of the Biden investment program. In May, Furman
wrote a paper contending that school closures and lack of child care
were not retarding the recovery, at a time when Biden and his staff were
working hard to get relief on both fronts. Politico commented that
Furman's stance could help Biden's opponents
.

And it did. Also in May, Furman told Bloomberg TV that the $300 a week
in extra jobless benefits was holding back a jobs recovery

in some parts of the country. Furman said of the Biden package as a
whole, "It's definitely too big for the moment. I don't know any
economist that was recommending something the size of what was done."

Really? That sure leaves out a lot of respected mainstream economists.
But the Cato Institute loved Furman's comment
.

And in a recent series of tweets, Furman has doubled down on his attack
on Biden's program, contending that "90%+" of macroeconomists not part
of the D.C. debate "think the American Rescue Plan was too large
." If
that's true, it tells you a lot about what's wrong with what passes
for mainstream economics.

Furman and Summers, both passed over for Biden jobs, are now at Harvard.
Their sniping is an irritation, but it's sure a mercy that they were
not brought into the administration.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

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

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Altercation: How Not to Stamp Out the Big Lie

Plus: Janet Malcolm remembered BY ERIC ALTERMAN

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