The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Nomination of Jared Bernstein (Executive Calendar)” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the in the Senate section section on pages S2061-S2062 on June 13.
The Department provides billions in unemployment insurance, which peaked around 2011 though spending had declined before the pandemic. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, claimed the Department funds "ineffective and duplicative services" and overregulates the workplace.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Nomination of Jared Bernstein
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the nomination of Dr. Jared Bernstein to be Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, or CEA.
Dr. Bernstein is highly qualified, with close to four decades of economic experience. He has devoted his career to working on economic policies that ensure growth reaches all Americans, fighting to make our economy fairer--something there is a lot of talk about in here but not enough action.
Since the beginning of the Biden administration, he served as a member of CEA. Before that, his experience, again, tells the story. He served in various senior-level roles inside and outside government--
chief economist and economic policy adviser to then-Vice President Biden; Deputy Chief Economist, Department of Labor; a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; economist at the Economic Policy Institute--all the kinds of qualifications that feed into this job.
Dr. Bernstein is widely respected by his peers from both sides of the aisle. I want to really make that clear. Before his nomination hearing--and I chair the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, from which he came. Before that hearing, seven--seven--former CEA chairs--the only one that didn't is long, long, long retired. I don't know if he was even asked. But seven former CEA chairs, who served in Republican administrations, wrote to the committee in support of his nomination. Three of them served under President Trump.
Think of that. Seven Republican former CEA chairs--still Republicans, most of them, much more conservative than Jared Bernstein--they all wrote a letter together, initiated by one of the Trump nominees, one of the Trump CEA chairs, Kevin Hassett. He led the effort. He told the New York Times:
I disagree with Jared about a lot, and Jared and I have been disagreeing about things for 20 years. But he really is a fundamentally good person who tries to figure things out with an open mind, and [sometimes he] changes his mind.
That is really all you want from a CEA chair.
Again, President Trump's chief economist said that Jared Bernstein has an open mind and changes his mind. That is precisely the kind of openness to ideas from anyone, of any party or point of view, that we should all want in an economic adviser.
Despite Dr. Bernstein's years of experience, despite his impeccable credentials, and despite receiving support from seven--I believe the most recent seven--former CEA chairs serving in Republican administrations, my Republican colleagues on the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee all voted no to Jared Bernstein.
Now, the decision to vote against his nomination is partisanship for the sake of partisanship, and I will give you an example. This sort of tells the whole story, Mr. President. The Banking and Housing Committee has a tradition of members voting for the President's pick. This isn't the Secretary of the Treasury. This isn't the Secretary of Labor. There are major disagreements. This isn't the head of the EPA.
This is essentially the President's personal economic adviser. So regardless of ideology, we support that, as I did--and I will get to that in a second--with the Trump nominees. Whom the President picks, we support in this body. It is one of the good traditions of the Senate. Not all traditions are good here. That is one of the good traditions of the Senate.
In 2017, I voted for Kevin Hassett, President Trump's nominee to serve as CEA Chair. I wasn't wild about Kevin Hassett. I liked him as a person. I wasn't wild about his ideology. He much too much believed that if you cut taxes on rich people and you give corporations all these tax breaks, it will trickle down and grow the economy.
I didn't buy that. I still don't buy that. We saw that huge tax cut. All it did was make rich people richer, make corporations move jobs overseas more quickly. It never trickles down to help middle-class workers. It never honors the dignity of work. We know that, but, nonetheless, because the President of the United States, duly elected, picked him as his Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and Kevin Hassett was honest, he was credentialed--he just was wrong on issues, but that shouldn't stop us from supporting for that position.
In 2021, Pat Toomey, the ranking member of the Housing, Banking, and Urban Affairs Committee, voted for Cecelia Rouse, President Biden's CEA nomination. The way I voted for a more conservative economist than I wanted, Senator Toomey voted for a more liberal economist than he wanted because she was qualified, she was credentialed, and she was an honest person.
Next step: The Senate confirmed both of them--Dr. Hassett's nomination, 81 to 16. I led our side of the aisle, with my fellow Democrats here, in an overwhelming--only 16 of them voted against, out of 48 or 49 then, because I stood in the committee and said: We owe this to the White House. The tradition is such in the Senate that you support the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.
Dr. Rouse's nomination passed 95 to 4. Senator Toomey did the same.
So we all used to agree in this body until somebody made it much more partisan. Never before in this nomination was there this kind of partisanship. We have agreed that the President is entitled to have his choice of CEA Chair.
I see no reason why that should change today. Dr. Bernstein's Republican peers and Democratic peers all came together and supported him. There is no reason the Senate shouldn't, in that same bipartisan fashion, vote to confirm his nomination. There are no really good reasons at all to do that.
I urge my colleagues to support Dr. Jared Bernstein's nomination to be Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.