https://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2020/06/just-who-hell-is-running-joe-bidens.html

As Joe Biden picks up steam in the presidential campaign, it makes sense to look at which economists are advising him. One problem. It’s a secret.

The New York Times reports:

Few aspects of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential campaign are shrouded in as much secrecy as the counsel he receives on the economy: which advisers have the most sway with the presumptive Democratic nominee, what ideas have the greatest currency, and what new policies Mr. Biden will ultimately embrace to address the racial inequities now animating protests nationwide.

Some broad contours have become clear. Mr. Biden plays down concerns about the deficit during this recession, aides say, and he has begun soliciting ambitious plans to bridge the gap in earnings and wealth between black and white Americans. His regular briefings are by a small group of liberal economists and others with roots in the Obama White House and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. And he sees the economic recovery as his foremost duty if he wins the presidency.

Yet the details of the policymaking process are closely held. Mr. Biden is now seeking input from more than 100 left-leaning economists and other researchers, but there is little clarity on who has true influence…A three-page document, sent last month ahead of the committee’s first online meeting, warned participants not to circulate email from committee leaders or refer to “the candidate or to the campaign” in documents.

“You are not to disclose the names of others who are involved in the committee to nonmembers,” according to the memo, which has not previously been reported.

 Members were allowed to tell friends and colleagues that they are participating, it continued, but “you should not, however, disclose your participation on social media such as Facebook or LinkedIn or in your professional bio.”

A section about press inquiries began, “Simply put, do not talk to the press.”

I am not expecting any sound economic policy if Biden gets elected but at this point, we don’t even know what bad direction he would go in. It might be very bad.

There is a hint that the secrecy may be because the advisers are radical left economists.

The Times again:

Conversations with policy experts close to the Biden campaign suggest that Mr. Biden has thus far leaned on a core group of advisers who roughly match his own ideological standing within a Democratic Party that has steadily moved left since Barack Obama won the White House in 2008. Mr. Biden appears to have widened that group to include some of the young and sharply progressive thinkers who drove the policy debate leftward during much of the 2020 Democratic primary campaign.

To wit: Asked over email if he was advising Mr. Biden, Gabriel Zucman, one of the architects of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposed tax on high-wealth Americans, referred a reporter to an email address for Mr. Biden’s press office. That address matched one that campaign officials sent to members of the newly formed economic policy committee, with instructions to give it to reporters in the event of questions about Mr. Biden.

It’s clear that whoever is running Biden wants the radicals in.

More from The Times:

Mr. Biden has faced pressure from progressives who have objected to his receiving advice from Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and top economic aide to Mr. Obama whom they fault over his record in areas like financial regulation and climate change.

Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, a progressive group, warned against relying on what he described as the “old guard” of Democratic economists.

I have written previously about the radical Zucman :

 Cal Berkeley economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez hate capitalism, free markets and the accumulation of wealth.

They are Elizabeth Warren’s two top economic advisers.

And in a post titled Krugman is Promoting Two Tax Maniacs, I wrote::

 Zucman has called for taxing private charities and philanthropic foundations, in addition to wealthy incomes.

Zucman and Saez are also the developers of Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax.

–RW

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