Last week, we launched our new Hack Watch website at hackwatch.us, where we track conflicts of interest and flat-out falsehoods in economics reporting, and the so-called experts who perpetuate them. This launch ushered in a wave of new subscribers to our newsletter (hello!), so we thought we’d dedicate this issue to welcoming our new readers, and introducing the breadth of issues that our Revolving Door Project team covers.
Economic Media Project
If you came here from the hackwatch.us launch, then you’ll probably be interested in our Economic Media Project (EMP), of which Hack Watch is the marquee item. EMP’s goal is simple: spotlight when and how the mainstream news media fails in its reporting on the economy, either through falsehoods, misleading claims, sensationalism, status quo bias, or any number of other bad journalistic tropes. In fact, we have an ongoing list of tropes we’ve identified over on the website, which will continue to update over time.
We think that one of the biggest causes of bad economics journalism is deep overreliance on a tiny handful of financially conflicted sources. These are the titular “hacks” of Hack Watch, the EMP-focused section of our newsletter which publishes every Friday at around 12:00 ET. The most-cited names in economics reporting — whether they’re economists, former government officials, or CEOs — are almost always centrists running an ideological gamut from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. That’s a pitifully narrow window of thought, and not remotely representative of the incredibly wide range of ideas in political economy today.
Moreover, those voices often have direct financial conflicts of interest related to the analysis and punditry they provide: investments in relevant firms, consulting contracts, and so on. This is almost never disclosed, much less grounds for outlets to reconsider platforming a given voice in the first place.
The mainstream media is most people’s primary source of information and education about economics and political economy. So the fact that our media relies on an ultra-narrow range of biased sources has hugely distortive effects on the state of our policy discourse, and thus, our eventual policies. EMP is our small way of trying to fight back, by naming and shaming the bad actors and trying to teach the public to think more critically about the economic media they consume.
Climate
Here at RDP, we spend significant time on the most existential issue facing humanity (and the executive branch) — the climate and ecological crisis. We're constantly searching for creative ways the federal government can take action, and we also keep an eye out for industry influence throughout the government.
One of our central beliefs is that the executive branch should engage in a highly publicized "corporate crackdown" on corporations causing environmental damage. There are dozens of bedrock environmental laws already on the books that prove extremely useful only if they are enforced and companies publicly shamed (and fined) along the way.
We believe the administration should be creative and innovative in the strategies it uses to fully embody the powers given to it by Congress. Declaring a climate emergency and making use of the Defense Production Act, filing amicus briefs and going to court on the side of people rather than oil and gas companies, stacking the Tennessee Valley Authority board with climate champions, and taking on the fossil fueled causes of cancer as part of Biden's Cancer Moonshot — these are only a few of the tactics we've endorsed.
We’ve done ample work on the Justice Department’s capacity to advance the climate fight and crack down on corporate polluters disproportionately harming low-income and BIPOC communities, critiquing Attorney General Garland for his long delay in supporting climate litigation against polluters, and for furthering Trump-era positions in ongoing lawsuits against environmental groups. We know that the executive branch has ample authority to take on the climate and environmental crises we face, and we push them to muster the missing political will.
But that political will can only be found if the executive branch isn't stacked with industry figures, which is why we name and shame revolving door personnel who are only taking on a public service role to benefit corporations they have (or will) profit from. From the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, we're always willing to go public with the facts of the matter. And we always welcome tips and suggestions for individuals throughout the administration who have been flying under the radar and may need a push in the right direction.
Anti-Monopoly
One of the brightest highlights of the Biden administration is the president’s antitrust enforcement policy, epitomized in his selection of Jonathan Kanter and Lina Khan to lead the DOJ Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission, respectively. They’ve brought cases against the biggest monopolists of our time, and through their actions, created a chilling effect on seemingly relentless corporate buy-ups.
But even under strong leadership, the FTC and DOJ are still forced to punch above their weight, stretching their limited budgets thin while dealing with deep-pocketed corporations and their armies of BigLaw lawyers. The FTC’s consumer protection mandate, in particular, allows the agency to protect older Americans and other vulnerable consumers from scams and illegal businesses practices. Though everyday people clearly benefit from the government stepping in to stop such harms, under current funding levels the FTC has to triage its cases against shady businesses and focus on dominant firms.
Corporations have long relied on a revolving door from government to BigLaw firms to ensure that antitrust enforcement stays friendly. As corporate influence over the FTC and DOJ Antitrust weakens from Khan and Kanter’s leadership, monopolists like Amazon, Facebook, and Google began to wage bogus campaigns to get Khan and Kanter recused from key cases. We’ll continue to call out hypocritical attempts to constrain robust antitrust enforcement. This includes attacks coming from fellow revolving door regulators like Dave Gelfand, Noah Phillips and Christine Wilson, who will soon announce which corporate-funded entity she’ll next join after leaving the FTC.
Housing
A core mission of the Revolving Door Project includes educating grassroots groups about executive branch levers of power. We are working closely with the tenant leaders of the Homes Guarantee campaign to learn and strategize around what the Biden administration can do to address the national affordable housing crisis, because we agree with tenant organizers that “the rent is too damn high.”
We’ve written about the opportunities that Biden’s chosen leadership at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) have to strengthen tenant protections in the midst of the housing and pandemic crises. Along with organizational allies, RDP contributed to the Homes Guarantee’s executive order to regulate rents and assisted tenant leaders in meetings with officials in the White House, HUD, FHFA, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to discuss these proposals.
Earlier this year, as a result of these meetings between the Homes Guarantee campaign and the Biden Administration, the White House announced in their renter protection plan the launch of an FHFA “public process to examine proposed actions promoting renter protections and limits on egregious rent increases for future investments.” The Revolving Door Project will be assisting the Homes Guarantee tenant leaders in calling for robust protections that keep people in homes through this process. But as the tenant leaders make pivotal progress, corporate landlords and their lobbyists are raising alarms. And as our Vishal Shankar exemplified in last week’s Hackwatch, RDP will be keeping an eye out for the baseless and duplicitous arguments these price gaugers use to defend their financialization of housing and repudiate the protections tenants are fighting for.
Governance
One of RDP’s founding commitments was to show how the executive branch can advance the public interest, and our longstanding governance-focused work is a key part of that. This work comprises our efforts to defend democracy, ensure accountability for corporate misdeeds, and highlight how government capacity is critical to achieving a majority of progressive policy goals.
Rhetorical attacks on the civil service by internal rogue actors, including former President Trump, most other Republicans and a good number of corporations have created an image of the federal government being big for nothing, but that’s far from the truth. In reality, weakening already poorly staffed government agencies would only lead to a stealthy repeal of the country’s laws, allowing corporate America evade accountability for their law-breaking actions.
That’s why we’ve spent the past couple years pushing for a de-Trumpification of the executive branch — the removal of Trump-appointed government officials who are equally committed to his goals of purging the civil service and defanging the executive branch’s ability to effectively administer the law. We recognized that these individuals’ exits necessitated a hiring spree, so we set to work on educating the public on the crawling pace at which the Senate confirms Presidential appointments. Our work on the confirmations crisis closely ties in with our agency spotlight, a handy resource which tracks appointments to leadership positions at thirty-nine independent agencies through the confirmation process and beyond.
While a robust civil service is an essential component of democracy, we think that staff across all agencies must be matched with leaders who are dedicated to regulating corporations. That’s why we scrutinize Congress’s oversight of the executive branch. We believe that serious oversight by legislators can expose the many ways administrations have failed to properly protect the public from corporate wrongdoing. Our scrutiny of the Justice Department also flows from our “corporate crackdown” fervor. But even beyond that, a bold, forward-looking administration needs a Justice Department that is unafraid of defending its priorities and excoriating corporate interests in court.
We know it’s impossible to effectively govern at current staffing levels (a reflection of the past forty plus years of disinvestment in the executive branch) so we’ve called on Democrats to continue fighting for a budget that would allow the federal government to actually work. If not, capacity shortfalls, which are an issue at most agencies, will continue to limit the executive branch’s ability to fulfill its responsibilities to the people.
Post- Transition 2.0
Over the winter, we saw a bit of an executive branch reshuffling, as top officials left the administration for a variety of reasons—some burning out, some selling out, some failing to receive Senate confirmation. A number of officials’ replacements are markedly less progressive than those who came before. Take Ali Zaidi, for instance, who represented oil and gas companies at right-wing law firm Kirkland and Ellis, and took over as National Climate Advisor after Gina McCarthy left. Or Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Richard Glick's replacement, Willie Phillips, who has been speeding up the review process for new gas pipelines and export terminals.
But by far the worst offender may be Jeffrey Zients. We have been Zients’ loudest and most consistent critic for years, as he followed up his stint as Obama’s “ambassador to the business community” with a troubled tenure as Biden’s COVID czar. Alex Sammon had a great piece in Slate on Monday about how the departure of Ron Klain as Biden’s Chief of Staff, and his replacement by Jeff Zients, closely tracks Biden’s recent rightward lean on issues from climate to criminal justice and immigration. Personnel is policy, and as Zients is a businessman’s businessman, it’s fair to assume that he might push Biden towards more corporate-friendly policy. So far, that assumption has been right on the money.
This stage of Biden’s presidency, in the long lead-up to the 2024 elections, will be judged as a success or failure based largely on the implementation and enforcement of existing laws, new and old. What’s at stake is not just the coherence and integrity of Biden’s legacy, but always how well the government serves the people. With Zients as the president’s gatekeeper, and given Biden’s track record of late, we’re expecting that pushing the White House to resist industry pressure and act on the people’s behalf will remain an uphill battle.
Follow the Revolving Door Project’s work on whatever platform works for you! You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Post.
Want more? Check out some of the pieces that we have published or contributed research or thoughts to in the last week:
The SVB Collapse Reveals the Class Bias in American Policymaking
CNBC Airs Falsehoods And Parrots Landlord Lobbyists To Trash Rent Control
DOJ IN THE NEWS: Mid-March Trends
Larry Summers-Linked Payments Company Accused of Criminality
Ethics Watchdog Launches "Hack Watch" Website Tracking Media Analysts
Can K Street’s Most Pro-Biden Firm Save TikTok?
Democrats try to figure out what legislation to rally around after SVB
If it’s as good as it sounds it’s desperately needed! I hope it’s not too late. Thank you all so much for being so savy and talented and for making such a massive and so well-informed effort on substack.
I truly believe this is the way forward in order to counter not only the trickle down economic lies my family suffered under the last 50 years but more importantly, force our government to stop mirroring the corrupt capitalists who have weakened our ability to stop the theft of our trillions in tax dollars. Politicians have used under the guise of “subsidies” annually by and of K Street’s intent to “drown the government in the bathtub” which has absolutely worked flawlessly in the amount of $32 trillion in debt we, our children, their children will be forced have to pay back.