Republican Economists Line Up Behind Biden Nominee

WASHINGTON — Almost each dwelling 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 Occasions, praises Mr. Bernstein for partaking with economists throughout ideological traces 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 regulation.

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 remedy of despair. They’d 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 because the begin of Mr. Biden’s administration. The president tapped him this 12 months 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 accomplice 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 couple of novel effort meant to steer funding to impoverished components of the US. These had been the so-called alternative zones, which had been included within the 2017 tax regulation.

This system designates areas in each state the place buyers in actual property, working companies or different tasks are eligible for important tax benefits, together with doubtlessly not having to pay capital beneficial properties taxes on earnings from their investments in these areas. Republicans have championed the zones because the regulation 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. Latest 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 thought for the zones as one instance of Mr. Bernstein’s outside-the-box pondering on economics.

Mr. Bernstein has “established a fame 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 former chairs below President George W. Bush: Ben S. Bernanke, N. Gregory Mankiw and R. Glenn Hubbard.

Mr. Hassett stated he had been unable to achieve the one different dwelling 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 advised 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 quite a bit, and Jared and I’ve been disagreeing about issues for 20 years,” Mr. Hassett stated. “However he actually is a essentially good one who tries to determine issues out with an open thoughts, and who modifications his thoughts.”