'Smartest Thing We Can Do Is Act Big': J. Yellen, Treas. Sec. Nom. Bolsters FDR-Style Agenda Demand [View all]

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- Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen speaks during an event featuring President-elect Joe Biden's economic team at the Queen Theater on Dec. 1, 2020 in Wilmington, Del. - Excerpts, Ed:
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- 'Smartest Thing We Can Do Is Act Big': Yellen Bolsters Demand for Biden to Enact Bold FDR-Style Agenda. "Instead of feel-good talk of unification," said journalist John Nichols, "FDR called out the Wall Street speculators, the bankers, and their conservative apologists." Common Dreams, Jan. 19, 2021.

During her Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen endorsed progressives' demand for President-elect Joe Biden to pursue a bold and egalitarian relief, recovery, and reform program capable of tackling the intertwined public health and economic catastrophe triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. "Right now, with interest rates at historic lows, the smartest thing we can do is act big," said Yellen, an economist and former chair of the Federal Reserve between 2014 and 2018.

"In the long run, I believe the benefits will far outweigh the costs, especially if we care about helping people who have been struggling for a very long time." "Economists don't always agree, but I think there is a consensus now: Without further action, we risk a longer, more painful recession now—and longer-term scarring of the economy later," she added. "People worry about a K-shaped recovery, but well before Covid-19 infected a single American, we were living in a K-shaped economy, one where wealth built upon wealth while working families fell farther and farther behind."

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, backed the Treasury Secretary nominee's call for the incoming Biden administration to disregard fear-mongering about the national debt in order to focus on improving the well-being of struggling working-class households that are grappling with unemployment, hunger, housing insecurity, and other pressing problems.. Yellen was given a glowing review by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who will soon chair the Senate Finance Committee once Democrats assume control of the chamber. "This is the worst economic crisis in 100 years," said Wyden, "and nobody is better qualified... to lead an economic recovery."...

..Yellen will also influence the federal government's approach to financial regulation and taxation. As Wyden explained during Yellen's hearing, such decisions shape other arenas, including energy policy. Despite Biden's extensive record of pushing for bipartisan neoliberalism, multiple progressive commentators have pointed to the devastating effects of the coronavirus crisis, the climate emergency, worsening inequality, and a weakened democracy in an attempt to persuade the president-elect to rebuild the economy on a more just and sustainable basis, especially now that Democrats control both chambers of Congress in addition to the White House...

More,
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/19/smartest-thing-we-can-do-act-big-yellen-bolsters-demand-biden-enact-bold-fdr-style



- Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act into law, Aug, 14, 1935.