Top White House economic adviser Brian Deese on Wednesday defended some of the Biden administration’s long-term spending plans, characterizing the proposed outlays as not connected to current inflation concerns — and as relatively modest.
Deese’s remarks came as he gave a speech on President Joe Biden’s industrial strategy during an Atlantic Council event. He said the COVID-19 crisis has served as a “wake-up call,” and Biden’s strategy is built on “five core pillars: supply-chain resilience, targeted public investment, public procurement, climate resilience and equity.”
When asked after his speech about critics who have voiced inflation worries, Deese emphasized that he was talking about outlays that would occur over a number of years.
“The public investment strategy we’re talking about here — that is a long-term strategy,” said Deese, whose title is director of the National Economic Council. “So, in terms of the impact on aggregate demand, it is spread out across time. And to the degree that people are feeling inflationary pressures in the short term, that really is not the issue.”
“We still have, you know, extraordinary economic challenges. We’re still down 7 million jobs from where we were before,” he added.
