Opinion of Janet Yellen

[Pyro]

HP advocate of austerity.

[Pyro]

HP advocate of austerity.

Unless I completely missed something in that text, nowhere does she "advocate" for austerity.

Pointing out that we are running up massive debts doesn't mean that she wants to gut social services, especially when a major driver of our deficit over the past 3 years has been tax cuts for the wealthy, or how defense spending will be over $100 billion higher in 2021 than it was in 2017.

Not all deficits are created equal, and the left's proposals for soaking the rich would also qualify "austerity" if you merely define "austerity" as not running up huge debts.

So far I haven't seen her advocate for slashing spending on social programs anywhere.

This is not the moment for a deficit hawk. Working people are struggling on a fundamental level with wages stagnant and federal assistance totally MIA, while corporations have made like bandits in securing massive bailouts. That should be the focal point of the new administration's fiscal policy. Motioning toward an "unsustainable" debt under "current tax and spending plans" is the clearest red flag you're going to see at this stage from someone like Yellen. I'm not saying she's some sort of Bush-era fiscal conservative, but reports of Wall Street emitting a "Sigh of Relief" should tell you everything.

[Pyro]

HP advocate of austerity.

Unless I completely missed something in that text, nowhere does she "advocate" for austerity.

Pointing out that we are running up massive debts doesn't mean that she wants to gut social services, especially when a major driver of our deficit over the past 3 years has been tax cuts for the wealthy, or how defense spending will be over $100 billion higher in 2021 than it was in 2017.

Not all deficits are created equal, and the left's proposals for soaking the rich would also qualify "austerity" if you merely define "austerity" as not running up huge debts.

So far I haven't seen her advocate for slashing spending on social programs anywhere.

This is not the moment for a deficit hawk. Working people are struggling on a fundamental level with wages stagnant and federal assistance totally MIA, while corporations have made like bandits in securing massive bailouts. That should be the focal point of the new administration's fiscal policy. Motioning toward an "unsustainable" debt under "current tax and spending plans" is the clearest red flag you're going to see at this stage from someone like Yellen. I'm not saying she's some sort of Bush-era fiscal conservative, but reports of Wall Street emitting a "Sigh of Relief" should tell you everything.

Janet Yellen is hardly a deficit hawk.

Again, she's previously brought up concerns about the debt alongside fears of rising "entitlement spending".

“[T]he primary federal deficit in the United States is currently quite large. It’s around 2.6% of GDP, which is well above the level consistent with stability at anything near the current debt to GDP ratio, and it’s projected to rise much further as the population ages and entitlement spending rises relative to GDP. Absent changes in taxes or spending commitments, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio will rise very substantially in the decades ahead. I believe that needs to change to place the trajectory of the federal debt on a sustainable path over the long run.” - Source

Not to mention pro-labor orgs like Employ America fearing that the Yellen appointment would return us to a "90s formula" that prioritized deficit reduction. (Per Bloomberg)