Republican Economists Line Up Behind Biden Nominee

WASHINGTON — Almost each residing economist who led the White Home Council of Financial Advisers in a Republican administration — together with the three chairs below President Donald J. Trump — signed a letter urging Congress to verify President Biden’s new nominee to steer the council, Jared Bernstein.

The letter, obtained by The New York Instances, praises Mr. Bernstein for partaking with economists throughout ideological strains and for his work drafting the unique proposal for the chance zones program that was included within the 2017 tax package deal that Mr. Trump signed into legislation.

The Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to carry a listening to on Mr. Bernstein’s nomination on Tuesday. Democrats had fearful about his probabilities of clearing a committee vote after Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, was hospitalized in February for therapy of melancholy. That they had stepped up efforts to court docket Republican senators to assist Mr. Bernstein. Mr. Fetterman has since returned to work within the Senate.

Mr. Bernstein has been a member of the council for the reason that begin of Mr. Biden’s administration. The president tapped him to succeed Cecilia Rouse, who stepped down on the finish of final month to return to her submit at Princeton College. Earlier than then, Mr. Bernstein was an adviser to Mr. Biden when he was the vp, a longtime fixture at liberal suppose tanks in Washington and a frequent sparring associate with conservative economists on cable information.

He additionally labored with Kevin Hassett, a conservative economist who went on to go the council below Mr. Trump, to draft a white paper for the Financial Innovation Group suppose tank a few novel effort meant to steer funding to impoverished elements of the USA. These had been the so-called alternative zones, which had been included within the 2017 tax legislation.

This system designates areas in each state the place traders in actual property, working companies or different tasks are eligible for vital tax benefits, together with probably not having to pay capital positive factors taxes on earnings from their investments in these areas.

Republicans have championed the zones for the reason that legislation was handed. Some critics, together with in Washington suppose tanks, have criticized them for delivering investments to some areas that had been already gentrifying quickly. Current analysis has proven a widening share of zones attracting funding within the years since they had been established.

Mr. Hassett, who spearheaded the letter to members of the Banking Committee on Mr. Bernstein’s behalf, and his fellow former heads of the council cited the concept for the zones as one instance of Mr. Bernstein’s outside-the-box considering on economics.

Mr. Bernstein has “established a popularity for producing informative, data-driven evaluation and growing artistic coverage concepts,” the previous heads of the council wrote.

Together with Mr. Hassett, two different performing heads of the council below Mr. Trump signed the letter: Tomas Phillipson and Tyler Goodspeed. Different signatories included Michael J. Boskin, who led the council below President George H.W. Bush, and three chairs below President George W. Bush: Ben S. Bernanke, N. Gregory Mankiw and R. Glenn Hubbard.

Mr. Hassett mentioned he had been unable to achieve the one different residing previous chair of the council below a Republican, Alan Greenspan, to ask him to signal the letter.

In an interview, Mr. Hassett praised Mr. Bernstein’s collegiality and instructed that he would proceed a bipartisan custom of council chairs searching for recommendation from their predecessors from each political events.

“I disagree with Jared about rather a lot, and Jared and I’ve been disagreeing about issues for 20 years,” Mr. Hassett mentioned. “However he actually is a basically good one that tries to determine issues out with an open thoughts, and who modifications his thoughts.”