IDK what's up with Jared Bernstein or why he apparently fucked up trying to answer a question from Stephanie Kelton's documentary.
But the other half of the claim this story is making is that Janet Yellen "gets basic econ wrong" because she doesn't like supply side economics.
Yellen also claims that “trickle down tax cuts” don’t fuel economic growth and only benefit the wealthy. Yellen is attacking Supply Side Economics, which economists have embraced for centuries. Statistics prove the economists’ version of Supply Side Economics.
Secretary Yellen gave a speech in Kentucky recently. Yellen announced that the Biden administration will implement what she refers to as Modern Supply Side Economics. This so called modern theory is really just a rehash of what economists refer to as “industrial policy”, mixed with investment in infrastructure. The traditional industrial policy favored by the Biden administration has a dismal track record globally.
Does it, though?
The big complaint that according to them goes against what economists have embraced for centuries, is that Janet Yellen wants to invest in infrastructure, instead of giving more money to the wealthiest people and then it'll trickle down?
All economists know that supply side effects of tax cuts really exist, we just disagree over the strength of these effects. Yellen is playing like a trick here. Some Republican politicians have exaggerated supply side effects of tax cuts, by claiming that their tax cuts will produce overnight miracles. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein pointed out the difference between statistically proven Supply Side Economics and the disproven politicized version of Supply Side Economics decades ago. Yellen surely knows all of this. Yellen is guilty of using the Strawman Fallacy to dismiss a sound alternative to Biden’s absurd industrial policies.
I don't have time to dig up the chart decade by decade of every single economic metric affecting both macro-scale economic well being, and individual well being for working people, and showing that during times of tax cuts for the wealthy every single one of them gets worse and during times of taxing the wealthy to fund doing other things with the money they all tend to get better, but that's what happens. It's almost comical how strong the correlation is and how universally it impacts every single metric.