Dean Henderson
Beat the Press, 16 February 2016

A NYT piece headlined “left-leaning economists question cost of Bernie Sanders’ plans” may have misled readers about the extent of skepticism among economists who consider themselves left-leaning. I can say this as a card-carrying left-leaning economist who often talks to other card-carrying left-leaning economists.

While there are undoubtedly many left of center economists who have serious objections to the proposals Sanders has put forward, there are also many who have publicly indicated support for them. Remarkably, none of those economists were referenced in this article. In fact, to make its case on left of center economists’ views, the NYT even presented the comments of Ezra Klein, who is neither an economist nor a liberal, by his own identification.

It also misrepresented the comments of Jared Bernstein (a personal friend), implying that they were criticisms of Sanders’ program. In fact his comments were addressed to the analysis of Sanders’ proposals by Gerald Friedman, an economist at the University of Massachusetts who is not affiliated with the Sanders campaign.

It also presented the comments of Brookings economist Henry Aaron about the views expressed by “other economists in a ‘lefty chat group’ he joins online.” This would seem to violate the NYT’s usual policy on anonymous sources.

SNIP...

Whatever standard of scrutiny the NYT chooses to apply to presidential candidates it should apply them equally. It is not good reporting to apply one standard to Senator Sanders, and even inventing credentials to press its points, and then apply lesser standards to the other candidates.

CONTINUED...

Assuming prolonged 5 plus percent growth isn't just unlikely it has no basis in reality.

to make sure it was sound. And it was.

However it's spun, de-regulation, privatization, and tax subsidies and loopholes for monied interests falls under the rubric of devoting our resources to places that have the most already. It's a very attractive argument for politicians, because it comes with barrels of supportive cash, but of course it isn't true.

What Sanders is talking about is basic progressive use of our collective resources. The Republican / conservative-Democrat spin is take from the poor and middle class, and send the wealth upwards, based on a raft of pseudo-logic about "job creators" and rewarding "hard work" and the like.

The problem is there isn't much left to give the rich. Wall Street is a casino that pays financial firms in taxpayer-backed chips. College tuition is a feeding tank for loan sharks. Even primary schools are now yet another source of corporate profit, through relentless testing regimens and privatization.

To paraphrase something conservatives try to say about socialism, the problem with corporate capitalism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.