The Quiet Architect of Biden’s Plan to Rescue the Economy

The strategy also appears to have helped Mr. Biden with a broader audience. While Mr. Biden has proposed the largest package of tax increases, in dollar terms, of any Democratic nominee, he has raked in donations from Wall Street, and some investment firm analysts project a Biden presidency driving stock markets higher, in part because of his desire to pass a large economic stimulus bill.

Mr. Harris, in conversations with business leaders, explains the details of Mr. Biden’s proposals to make the case that the candidate would help corporate America by making the economy more productive.

“Ben will go way deep in the weeds, and he has enormous patience for every question,” said, adding it gets results. “The American business executive is willing to accept higher taxes, if they will fund a plan that will work and not just expand government for government’s sake. They need to know that the programs and ideas are going to work.”

President Trump and his aides have argued the opposite — that Mr. Biden’s plan would crush American companies and the economy. In a recent television ad, the Trump campaign warns that Mr. Biden’s plan would leave “an economy in ruins.”

Mr. Harris has built his career in Washington, and in economics, around the mechanics of building policies that are data-driven and politically feasible. And he has developed a deep understanding of how Mr. Biden thinks about the economy.

Austan Goolsbee, the former chairman of Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, who is advising Mr. Biden from the outside, calls Mr. Harris “the Biden for econ Ph.D.s.” Another longtime Biden adviser, Jared Bernstein, said Mr. Harris “knows the current platform and agenda almost better than anyone except Biden himself.”

“When I and others assert something” in campaign policy debates, Mr. Bernstein said, “we often finish the sentence with, ‘but we better ask Ben.’”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/business/biden-economist.html