[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 103 (Tuesday, June 13, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2056-S2057]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Nomination of Jared Bernstein

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, since President Biden took office, 
consumer prices have risen more than 16 percent. American families are 
paying 20 percent more to put food on the table than they did in 
January 2021 and 36 percent more on energy. But over more than 2 years 
of Washington Democrats' runaway inflation, President Biden's top 
advisers have refused to even admit that it is a problem, let alone 
that their policies are driving it.
  In early 2021, after Senate Democrats helped ram through the 
administration's reckless taxing-and-spending spree, one top White 
House adviser insisted that any inflationary effect would be 
``transitory.''
  Eight months deeper into the administration's inflationary spiral, 
the same adviser insisted that inflation would be ``growing half as 
fast a year from now''--another fanciful prediction overcome by the 
harsh, painful consequence of Washington Democrats' reckless spending 
and another instance where Jared Bernstein--President Biden's choice to 
serve as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers--was simply dead 
wrong on economic advice, dead wrong.
  The CEA was designed to produce objective, empirical economic 
analysis. With the rarest of exceptions, it has been led by a seasoned 
economist with a Ph.D. in the field. That streak would end with Mr. 
Bernstein.
  The nominee the Senate will consider this week can more accurately 
claim expertise in partisan warfare than economics. He has been labeled 
in the press as President Biden's ``man on the left.''

[[Page S2057]]

  In his own words, Mr. Bernstein's long record of progressive 
fantasies speaks for itself. For example, he said:

       We should not kid ourselves into thinking . . . that we can 
     pay for Medicare for All and a jobs guarantee solely by 
     taxing the rich.

  The nominee has called abortion ``at its core an economic issue.'' He 
urged Democrats to ``take the Green New Deal seriously.'' And last 
year, he praised a nearly $80 billion plan to expand IRS enforcement as 
one of his favorite parts of President Biden's so-called Inflation 
Reduction Act. What a staggering--staggering--lack of awareness of the 
way his party's policies have hurt working families across our country. 
So the American people cannot afford Jerry Bernstein at the wheel of 
CEA.