White House Economic Adviser Jared Bernstein
Jared Bernstein The Hill’s Morning Report, presented by Facebook, Cheney maintains the leadership position; Dems to punish Greene Sunday shows the preview: new variants of COVID-19 are spreading in the US; Redditors shakes Wall Street with Gamestop shares. The Biden economic team receives mixed opinions from Republicans in the MORE Senate on Friday pushed back public criticism of former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers, who expressed concern in a Washington Post publication about the risks to inflation posed by President Biden’s proposed coronavirus relief for $ 1.9 trillion.
Bernstein, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters at a White House press conference that he disagreed with Summers’ view and that the former Treasury secretary was “totally wrong” in suggesting that Biden administration officials rejected inflationists. risks.
Bernstein also stood firm in the White House’s position that the risk of doing too little outweighs the risk of spending a large relief package.
“I think the idea now is that we have to hit hard, we have to make a strong blow if we finally put this double crisis of the pandemic and the … economic pain it has engendered behind us,” Bernstein said. “We have consistently argued that the risks of doing too little are far greater than the risks of doing too much, providing families and businesses with the relief they need to finally stop this virus.”
Summers, who was President Obama’s top economic adviser and served as Secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration, wrote in the Post that such a large stimulus package could “provoke inflationary pressures of a kind that does not we’ve seen it in a generation. “
“This will be manageable if monetary and fiscal policy can be adjusted quickly to solve the problem,” Summers wrote. “But given the commitments made by the Fed, the dismissal of government officials even of the possibility of inflation and the difficulties in mobilizing congressional support to raise taxes or reduce spending, there is the there is a risk that inflation expectations will rise sharply “.
On Friday, Bernstein repeatedly discussed this claim and said Summers was wrong. Bernstein also said Biden’s economic team was unanimous in the agreement on the need to pass a robust package to deal with the crisis.
“Regarding Larry in his work, it’s absolutely wrong for our team to be doing without inflationary risks,” Bernstein said. “Janet Yellen
Janet Louise Yellen: Yellen convenes meeting of regulators at GameStop Top Democrats urge Yellen to crack down on dark money groups in Biden GOP courts, indicating he could move without them MORE he is our Secretary of the Treasury. She knows a little bit about inflationary risks. ”
Yellen is a former president of the Federal Reserve.
The briefing came after Biden made comments pushing the rapid passage of his $ 1.9 trillion proposal, indicating that he was prepared to move forward without Republican support after seeking approval. bipartisan of a coronavirus relief bill. He warned that the economy is still clearly “in trouble,” citing new Department of Labor figures that show employers only added 49,000 jobs in January.