My last essay attracted a lot of attention, most of it positive. In it, I bemoaned the cultural obsession with demonizing binaries, but didn’t provide any examples. This essay fills the gap so we can see how casual and ubiquitous it has become.
When President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Scott Bessent to be Secretary of the Treasury, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, promptly posted a statement on the Committee’s website. The media dutifully picked up the first two sentences of that statement, which appeared widely in press coverage (e.g., New York Times, Politico, Chicago Tribune):
Donald Trump pretends to be an economic populist, but it wouldn’t be a Trump Treasury Department without a rich political donor running the show. When it comes to the economy, the government under Trump is of, by, and for the ultra-wealthy.
The Treasury Department supervises the banking system, manages federal finances, advises on domestic and international economic policy, and enforces finance and tax laws. It is an enormously consequential institution. Yet, from this statement, issued by one of the most powerful figures in one of the most powerful institutions in the most powerful nation in the world, do you learn anything about Scott Bessent, the man who would lead this institution, apart from the fact that he is apparently a “rich political donor” to Donald Trump?
No, what you learn is that he is bad and we should dislike him, for no apparent reason other than he is wealthy and gave money to the president-elect.
During the campaign, Trump made deregulation, tariffs, and deportations the centerpiece of his economic plan, arguing that these policies will increase growth and raise wages for working Americans. But none of them are without risk. Consider tariffs. The consensus view among economists is that tariffs ultimately raise costs to consumers as sellers increase the price of goods and services to cover the cost of the tariff. Consistent with this, a number of scholars have studied the effect of Trump’s first-term tariffs and found that the cost was “fully passed through to American buyers.”
Against this, Bessent has argued that “Trump’s first-term tariffs did not raise the prices of the affected goods.” But pay attention to the wording: Bessent says the tariffs did not increase what the consumer paid for the tariffed goods. Of course, businesses can raise prices on other goods and services to cover the cost of the tariff, and from the consumer’s perspective, it has the same effect: they pay more.
The important question, therefore, is the extent to which the cost of the tariff is ultimately passed on to the consumer, and not simply whether the cost of a tariffed washing machine stays the same. And on that question, the research is surprisingly consistent: the cost has been passed on to consumers. (Bessent has said he believes new tariffs should be phased in gradually, which he thinks will give the market an opportunity to adjust. But it’s not clear how this will avoid the pass-through costs.)
What about deportations? Trump argues that undocumented workers lower wages and displace native-born workers, and that if we deport them, conditions for native-born workers will improve as unemployment falls and wages rise. But there is very little reliable evidence to back this up. While the precise effect depends on their scale, careful studies consistently find that mass deportations of the sort contemplated by the incoming president lower GDP and increase unemployment.
And as much as some people might hope it were otherwise, the fact is that when we deport undocumented workers, U.S. citizens do not rush to fill their jobs. “Past experience with deportations demonstrates that employers do not find it easy to replace such workers. Instead, they respond by investing in less labor-intensive technologies to sustain their businesses, or they simply decide not to expand their operations. The net result is fewer people employed in key business sectors like services, agriculture, and manufacturing.”
We could ask the same sort of questions for all of Trump’s proposed economic policies. What are the risks of deregulating banks? How will the Trump Treasury assure the independence of the Federal Reserve? What are Bessent’s thoughts on the economic impact of climate change? Does artificial intelligence threaten jobs in some labor-intensive sectors, and if so, what will the Trump Treasury do about it? What are the current and emerging risks in cybersecurity? I could interview Bessent for hours and never ask the same question twice.
My intention is not to rerun the election. Instead, I would simply observe that Americans deserve to hear, and need to understand, how the incoming Treasury Secretary will answer these and other important questions. Does he believe—contrary to so many careful studies—that the ultimate cost of tariffs will not be passed onto consumers, and if so, why? And if that risk exists, how will the Trump Treasury Department mitigate against it? Does he believe that mass deportations—again, contrary to the consensus view—will not depress GDP and increase unemployment? Does he believe, contrary to experience, that Americans will fill those jobs? If so, why does he suppose this time will be different?
Importantly, none of these questions imply anything about Mr. Bessent’s character or integrity, and we can ask them without suggesting he is somehow morally unfit for public service. On the contrary, I am prepared to assume he acts with the best of intentions and have no reason to believe otherwise.
Of course, if Senator Wyden were reading this essay, and I strongly suspect he will not, he could point out that I—like the media—have quoted only selectively from his statement about Bessent. He might say that I am the one being unfair. But the whole statement doesn’t make it any better. Here it is:
Donald Trump pretends to be an economic populist, but it wouldn’t be a Trump Treasury Department without a rich political donor running the show. When it comes to the economy, the government under Trump is of, by, and for the ultra-wealthy. The proof is in the fact that the first legislative priority for Trump and Republicans is passing another round of tax-breaks for the top while raising taxes on the products American households buy and use every day. The next Treasury Secretary is going to have his hands all over that process, and I’m going to have a lot of questions for Mr. Bessent about the merit of a Trump policy that will intentionally inflict economic pain on families who are already getting clobbered by the cost of living. I expect this nomination will go through the Finance Committee’s thorough and longstanding vetting process that has applied to nominees from both sides. The American people should view any effort to circumvent that process as an attempt to hide key information about Trump’s nominees and policy plans in the shadows.
Yes, it’s true the rest of the statement nods to Trump’s proposed tariffs, which Wyden correctly calls a tax increase. But it’s very hard to read this statement and come away with the idea that Wyden wants to engage in a thoughtful discussion of economic policy, or that he wants to educate the American public. What he wants is to paint the Trump Treasury as part of a deliberate plan to “inflict economic pain on families who are already getting clobbered by the cost of living.” What he wants, in short, is to promote unthinking political animosity. It’s infuriating.
Even more to the point, Wyden knows perfectly well that the press will not use his entire statement; he knows they will select the snippet that makes the best copy, which is to say, the most inflammatory and the most biting, and therefore the portion that best illustrates his expected role in the ritualized drama of today’s political life. It’s a quid pro quo: Wyden promises to say something juicy in exchange for the media’s promise to quote him. And that is precisely what happened. I can’t find a single media outlet that quoted anything more than the first two sentences, just as Wyden expected.
I suppose I shouldn’t end this essay without the obligatory assurance that I have nothing against Senator Wyden. On the contrary, I’m sure I agree with him on most substantive issues. As I do with Bessent, I assume Wyden acts with the best of intentions and have no reason to believe otherwise. We can also imagine Wyden saying, quite rightly, that he does nothing more than what is customary for those in his position, and that this is simply how the sausage is made in Washington. He might even say that this is what his constituents want. They want a “fighter,” and he believes this is what it means to “fight” in today’s America.
All that may be true, and that’s the problem.
As always, and in the spirit of thoughtful conversation, if you have any reactions to this essay, feel free to share them with me at jm347@cornell.edu.
