Monday, July 13, 2015

Think Tankers Help Draft Hillary's Big Economic Speech

Hillary Clinton, a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, is giving a major economic speech today, much of which appears to have been shaped by prominent think tankers.

Here is more from Bloomberg Politics:
In developing the speech and its underlying policy positions, Clinton and her aides consulted with more than 200 domestic policy experts over several months, the campaign official said. The process—which included hours-long meetings with the candidate herself—was led by senior policy advisers Jake Sullivan, Maya Harris, and Ann O’Leary. Also taking part was Gary Gensler, the campaign’s chief financial officer and a former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission who has advocated for stricter rules for Wall Street.
Aware that the names of those advising the campaign on the economy will be interpreted as an indication of the deeper direction of its policy, the official offered a list of 10 people who are center-left and have few ties to the financial services industry. The group includes longtime Clinton advisers including Tanden, former Clinton and Obama National Economic director Gene Sperling, former Clinton Council of Economic Advisers chair Joseph Stiglitz, and Alan Blinder, who worked in the Clinton White House and served as Federal Reserve vice chairman from 1994 to 1996.
Two of Obama's former CEA chairs—Krueger and Berkeley professor Christina Romer—have both advised the campaign, as have New York University law professor David Kamin, Duke business professor Ronnie Chatterji, Yale political science professor Jacob Hacker and Heather Boushey, executive director and chief economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a think-tank that studies the impact of income inequality. 
One person omitted from the official’s list, but who has been among the many economic experts consulted by the campaign, was Larry Summers, treasury secretary under Bill Clinton and National Economic Council director under Obama. While Summers once opposed tighter regulation of the financial markets, he now embraces "inclusive prosperity," allowing the many—and not just the few—to benefit from capitalism.

Maya Harris, mentioned above, formerly worked at Center for American Progress (CAP),  and Neera Tanden is the president of that think tank.  Heather Boushey is a Senior Fellow at CAP, and also the Executive Director and Chief Economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth - a think tank within CAP.  Larry Summers is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at CAP.

As Think Tank Watch has noted in the past, Hillary Clinton will likely rely on a variety of Democratic and Progressive think tanks for her campaign ideas, most notably CAP.

And in an apparent hat-tip to think tanks, Hillary Clinton is selling "Think Tank" tank tops on her official 2016 campaign website (Hillary for America) for $30.