It Depends on What You’re Trying to Achieve

Here’s the peroration of Douglas Holtz-Eakin’s pointed criticism of the American Jobs Plan (AJP) and American Families Plan (AFP) at The Hill:

Long-run trend growth is fundamentally about expanding the supply of goods and services, real wages and standards of living. The AJP and AFP must be evaluated based on their ability to expand these. At present, they fail this test. There is nothing about raising the corporate rate to an uncompetitive level, raising the only global minimum tax in the developed world by another 50 percent, more than doubling the tax on the majority of capital gains, and more that will enhance saving, investment, and supply growth. Proponents counter that those tax revenues fund productive investments that outweigh the tax-based headwinds. Unfortunately, a careful and detailed American Action Forum analysis of these claims indicates that even a disciplined investment program will fall short. The AJP and AFP need to be rethought from the perspective of economic growth.

There are policymakers who don’t agree with his premise. They believe that “trend growth” is completely dependent on demand side factors and that’s not the exclusive domain of either political party. The Bush and Trump tax cuts in the personal income tax rate were both predicated on that assumption. And it’s pretty clearly the view of the Biden Administration.

My own view is that for the last 20 years we’ve had an enormous and unwelcome disconnect among achievable goals, necessary objectives, economic assumptions, and policy prescriptions and I see things getting worse rather than better in that regard.

7 comments… add one
  • Drew Link

    “There are policymakers who don’t agree with his premise.”

    The one assumption I think you can take to the bank (and anyone who disagrees is probably not worth wasting time on) is that the private sector spends a dollar more wisely than the public sector. Almost universally true.

  • steve Link

    Just so it doesnt get ignored, gain in function testing was put on hold in 2014 but Trump reinstated it in 2017. Just had to reverse anything that Obama had done. A criminal act by Trump!

    https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08837-7

    Steve

  • I think that was a bad move. Had I known about it at the time I would have said so.

  • CuriousOnlooker Link

    It is a facile attempt to “blame it on Trump”. Here is an interview with Richard Ebright, a professor at Rutgers and one of the key people who pushed and got a “ban” on gain of function research. He’s not a fan of Trump.

    https://www.independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/an-interview-with-richard-ebright-anthony-fauci-francis-collins-systematically-thwarted/

    Read all of it but here is a key quote. Emphasis mine.

    What went wrong for the Cambridge Working Group thesis during the 2014-2016 USA official moratorium and deliberative process on Gain-of-Function Research of Concern (GoFRoC)?

    The Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have systematically thwarted efforts by the White House, the Congress, scientists, and science policy specialists to regulate GoF research of concern and even to require risk-benefit review for projects involving GoF research of concern.

    In 2014, the Obama White House implemented a “Pause” in federal funding for GoF research of concern. However, the document announcing the Pause stated in a footnote that: “An exception from pause may be obtained if head of funding agency determines research is urgently necessary to protect public health or national security”. Unfortunately, the NIAID Director and the NIH Director exploited this loophole to issue exemptions to projects subject to the Pause –preposterously asserting the exempted research was “urgently necessary to protect public health or national security”– thereby nullifying the Pause.

    In 2017, the Trump Administration announced a Potential Pandemic Pathogens Control and Oversight (P3CO) Framework that implemented a requirement for risk-benefit review of GoF research of concern. However, the P3CO Framework relies on the funding agency to flag and forward proposals for risk-benefit review. Unfortunately, the NIAID Director and the NIH Director have declined to flag and forward proposals for risk-benefit review, thereby nullifying the P3CO Framework.

    It was a ban in name only; and that the NIH director and NIAID director deliberately worked the bureaucratic angle around any oversight.

    By the way, Fauci’s testimony on Tuesday before the Senate was disingenuous.

    “However, I will repeat again, the NIH and NIAID categorically has not funded gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

    The problem is as Nicholas Wade’s article pointed out — the funds weren’t direct grants, they were given through Ecohealth Alliance; which then gave them to WIV. And it is clear the head of Ecohealth Alliance knew what the WIV was doing. That leaves a quandary — when the incentives are to obfuscate and the person obfuscate’s, it doesn’t exactly lower suspicion.

    A last point — from a comment link left the other day, here is a paper from WIV in 2017 where they recombined different coronaviruses and tested their infectiousness — and the paper acknowledges funding from the NIH/NIAID. Was this paper not labelled “gain of function” or just exempted from the “ban”?

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5708621/

    Again, I need to stress we are unlikely to pin the origins of the virus. But we ought to look clearly because the science and technology says it is now feasible — and the US is one of the biggest funders of gain of function research in the world.

  • steve Link

    Point stands that Trump lifted the moratorium. Somehow actions by others were criminal bout there was nothing said about Trump making it easier for the research to take place again. That should be criminal also.

    Steve

  • steve Link

    BTW, since I am sure you didnt read the Nature article, gotta defend Trump, it notes that 21 studies were stopped. 10 of them eventually got restarted during the moratorium but 11 never did. Never did until Trump lifted the moratorium. A GOOD example of how banning regulations can double research.

    Steve

  • CuriousOnlooker Link

    Steve, you are rather rude. I haven’t called Fauci a criminal; the strongest comment I said about Fauci on this subject was disingenuous. Please refrain from putting words in my mouth.

    As to the rest of it. There’s really 3 ways to think about the moratorium.
    1) It was successful in preventing the research that risks triggering a pandemic. Trump lifted the moratorium and Trump bad.

    2) It would have been successful in its goals but it failed due to bureaucratic resistance. Richard Elbright’s view.

    3) Even if correctly implemented, it wouldn’t work to lower risks.

    My evidence is whatever this moratorium was, it failed before Trump lifted it. The WIV was conducting experiments by creating chimeric virus in 2017 before the moratorium was lifted, the risk the ban was supposed to reduce wasn’t reduced at all — that leaves (2) or (3).

    My desire is not a quest for accountability. I want to reduce risks, which are many considering the US government is largest or 2nd largest funder of gain of function research in the world, and in the top 3 countries that have the expertise to create a pandemic via accidental lab leak. And considering everything, it’s not a risk that should be managed solely by the NIH / NIAID / CDC directors or just via the executive branch.

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