Furman also argued that Biden's allies 'insisted that voters grossly misunderstood the economy'
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Former Obama economist Jason Furman wrote in an op-ed that former President Joe Biden's economic policy fell short of its goals, criticizing the Biden administration's economic policies as a "tragedy."
"The Biden administration’s post-neoliberal turn, the predicted economic transformations of which prompted comparisons to Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, fell considerably short of its lofty goals," Furman wrote in Foreign Affairs Magazine, conceding that while some macroeconomic outcomes were impressive, "the recovery has been uneven, frustrated by inflation at least partly induced by the administration’s own policies."
Furman, an economic advisor for Obama, was critical of some of Biden's policies during his term, including Biden's student loan forgiveness, and as former Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, he criticized her idea for price controls to curb inflation and lower prices.
"Biden’s supporters and policymakers, especially those who have denied the effects of inflation, insisted that voters grossly misunderstood the economy or attributed Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss in the 2024 presidential election solely to a global rejection of incumbents," the economist wrote.
Obama economist Jason Furman hits "Bidenomics" in a lengthy op-ed. (Left:(Photo by Mandel Ngan - Pool/Getty Images) Right: Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
FORMER OBAMA ECONOMIST REJECTS INFLATION HAPPY TALK: NOT ‘GOING AWAY ANYTIME SOON’
The economist argued that Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda failed to address the immediate concerns of the electorate.
"It is possible that just the portion of inflation caused by global shocks would have been enough to doom any incumbent party’s reelection chances. But adding to that inflation with unnecessary spending, minimizing the suffering it caused, and touting an imaginary boom in infrastructure and manufacturing surely did not help Democrats," he continued.
Furman spoke to Politico about the article and explained why he chose to write it now, as Trump is now the president.
"And I also looked, as the administration ended, and frankly saw a lot of people who I didn’t think were drawing on the right lessons of the last four years. They thought it was just bad luck: global inflation, all incumbents are losing, what he did was actually all great from beginning to end. And I thought taking the right lesson, stepping back, tying it together, doing an after-action report is really important," he told the outlet.
A side-by-side of U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. (AP Photo/Getty Images)
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Furman said Biden's policies on infrastructure had been a "failure."
"A huge amount of money flooded into it. In some ways it made it even harder to build with the number of requirements put on programs," he told Politico. "All of this drove up costs so much that the money that got spent was basically swallowed up by the higher costs, and then a lot of the money hasn’t even been spent."
Furman detailed his critiques of the administration's infrastructure law, which was passed in 2021, in his Foreign Affairs op-ed, arguing that the "Law did little to address the root causes of the United States’ long-standing infrastructure unaffordability problem," and said the costs of construction left the U.S. "building less" than it was prior to the law passing.
Jared Bernstein, one of Biden's top economic advisors, rejected Furman's criticisms in two Substack posts.
"Many of these claims are wrong and many fail to recognize economic input from CEA [Council of Economic Advisers] and others that Jason would recognize as sound. Jason devalues remarkably positive economic outcomes from our tenure, and ignores important contributions we made to the living standards of vulnerable families. There are also cases where politics pushed us toward sub-optimal policies, and where we did the best we could with the cards we held," Bernstein wrote.
Bernstein also acknowledged that his economic team made mistakes, despite taking issue with Furman's critiques. In another post published on Wednesday, Bernstein wrote that Furman "had to know he was giving powerful ammunition to an opposition that, whatever his beefs about us, is incomparably worse on all the economic issues he’s worried about."
Biden's team declined to comment on Furman's op-ed.
Hanna Panreck is an associate editor at Fox News.
