“If I Had a Powerpoint, Here’s What it Would Say” – Jared Bernstein

In the Economic Policy debate between Jared Bernstein (liberal) and James Pethokoukis (conservative), the topics were discussed under the guise of being impartial to political parties or the election. However, as I witnessed, it’s difficult to talk about things such as economic stagnation, trade deals, and student debt without politics coming into play. What surprised me the most was that even though both debaters were on opposite political spectrums they tended to agree with each other on the origin of the issues. However, they disagreed on how to treat the issue, and were blunt about their opinions.

The first question asked the debaters to discuss how they would fix economic stagnation in the U.S. Pethokoukis stated that time was the only answer, because the U.S has been through a lot, and we implement policies that steadily increase GDP growth. The first sign of what I would consider an appeal to “dog-whistle politics” was from Bernstein in response to this question. He believes that the way to fix economic stagnation is to start with “the people who were left behind” (he’s referencing African-Americans, Hispanics, and illegal immigrants). He blatantly states that by deporting all illegal immigrants, we are decreasing labor productivity, which is a key component in improving overall GDP.

The other question that I found the most thought provoking was about whether or not the U.S economy is “rigged” to give the profits of hardworking middle-class Americans to the top 1%. There’s another “dog whistle politics” reference by both of them, where they automatically refer to immigrants as low-income wage earners. They also bring up a moral panic that I wasn’t aware of. They both state that economic inequality has remained about the same for the past 15 years, however, 15 years ago it wasn’t a crisis. They claim that today the only reason it’s become a crisis is because of the economic downturn, which in turn has people worried. Politicians have used this economic inequality as a reason to start a panic and explain the economic downturn in a way that will appeal to voters.

Overall, I thought the panel was interesting, and, as Pethokoukis said, the status quo is changing and we need to figure out a way to move this forward. They both believe that if there is no change, bad things will happen. There is hope for the future, but it’s going to be a heavy lift.