The Lonely Neoliberal

FORMER OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ECONOMIST JASON FURMAN ON TRUMP, BIDEN, AI, AND MORE

- NICK GILLESPIE

JASON FURMAN IS one of the most influential Democratic economists of the past two decades. From 2013 to 2017 he chaired President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he helped shape tax, trade, and labor policy during a period of slow but steady postrecession recovery. Before that, he played a key role in crafting the 2009 stimulus. Today he is a professor at Harvard and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He’s been in the news for his withering critique of former President Joe Biden’s dismal economic record and his two-fisted attacks on President Donald Trump’s trade policy.

Furman is perhaps best known for his technocratic approach to economics—he defends markets, trade, and budget discipline within a framework of pursuing broadly progressive goals. That makes him something of an outlier in today’s Democratic Party, which moved sharply toward industrial policy, protectionism, and deficit-financed spending under Biden. In a recent essay titled “The Post-Neoliberal Delusion,” Furman critiques this pivot and defends the “neoliberal” consensus as a coherent, rigorous, and beneficial way of thinking about economic policy.

In April, Furman went on The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie and discussed why the Biden administration's marquee initiatives—from the American Rescue Plan to student loan forgiveness to the CHIPS Act—failed to deliver on their promises. He explains why populism has eroded confidence in markets, why tariffs are bad economics no matter who imposes them, why serious budget reform remains politically elusive, and why he is now optimistic about artificial intelligence. He also reflects on what it means to be a market-friendly Democrat in an era of big-government revivalism.

Reason: You recently wrote a piece called “The Post-Neoliberal Delusion,” talking about the failure of Bidenomics. How do you define neoliberal?