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**FEBRUARY 10, 2023**

Kuttner on TAP

****

****

****

****

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****

****

**** Julie Su as Labor Secretary Is a
Three-Fer

She opens space for Biden to name someone better than Lael Brainard to
head the NEC.

Nancy Pelosi, weirdly, has been calling labor leaders and top Biden
officials
<[link removed]>,
including the president, to push former New York Congressman Sean
Patrick Maloney to succeed Marty Walsh as labor secretary. This makes no
sense on three grounds.

First, Maloney, as the former head of the DCCC who managed to lose his
own seat and several others held by Democrats, is as responsible as
anyone for the fact that Pelosi is no longer Speaker. Loyalty for a
former, now jobless, member of the House leadership is one thing, but
Maloney didn't earn it. Quite the opposite.

Second, Maloney is not much of a progressive and has no particular ties
to the labor movement. "Nancy is being incredibly disrespectful to
working people by making it look like the Labor Department is a place to
park political hacks," says one senior union source. Speaking of which,
the

**New York Post** is reporting that another out-of-work pol, former
Mayor Bill de Blasio, has been lobbying Biden
<[link removed]>
for the labor job.

Third and most importantly, Deputy Labor Secretary Julie Su, a genuine
progressive who knows the Labor Department inside and out, has already
locked up broad support. Most union leaders are backing Su. The
Congressional Black Caucus and the Asian American and Pacific Islander
caucus have already endorsed
<[link removed]>
Su, pointing out that there are no Asian Americans in the Cabinet. (U.S.
Trade Rep Katherine Tai sort of counts but is far less visible.)

This is a very rare case of the astute Pelosi having a tin ear, unless
she is just going through the motions to do Maloney a favor. She must
know that it's inconceivable that Biden would defy both the labor
movement and the Black and Asian caucuses (unless his re-election
advisers make a cynical campaign decision that this post needs to go to
a white guy, which would be cheap grace-there are better ways for
Biden to dramatize his support for the white working class).

Speaking of gender politics, here's another very good reason to give
Su the labor job. The White House has leaked the fact that Fed Vice
Chair Lael Brainard is the top candidate to be the new director of the
National Economic Council.

This is a terrible idea on two grounds. First, we need Brainard at the
Fed as a counterweight to the perverse tight-money policies of Chair Jay
Powell.

Second and even more important, though Brainard is good on monetary
policy, she is a traditional free-trade globalist at a time when Biden
is all in on an agenda of economic planning and conditioned subsidies to
reshore production to America. Brainard's impulses would be at odds
with the president's own priorities.

Why Brainard? Because with Jeff Zients as the new chief of staff and
Jared Bernstein soon moving up to chair the Council of Economic
Advisers, succeeding the departing Cecilia Rouse, the White House
doesn't want the optics of three white guys in the top economic job.
Thus they need a woman at the NEC.

But Brainard is the wrong woman and-stop the presses-labor secretary
is also a top economic job and Julie Su is a woman. So the symbolism of
naming Su to head the Labor Department frees Biden to appoint the best
person to head the NEC, regardless of gender.

Meanwhile, incumbent Labor Secrertary Marty Walsh, who embarrassed
everyone with the leak of his reported imminent departure to the NHL
Players' Association, has yet to ice his deal. This could go into
sudden-death overtime.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

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