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Charlie Anderson
@EconCharlie
EVP for Infrastructure at @Arnold_Ventures Formerly: @WhiteHouse NEC (2x) & DPC; @WHCOVIDResponse; @SenatorBennet; @USTreasury.
Washington, DC
Joined January 2017
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  • Pinned
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    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 16, 2023
    BIG NEWS: @Arnold_Ventures is launching a major new infrastructure initiative today, and I’m thrilled to join them as their first-ever EVP for Infrastructure to drive progress toward building faster, better, and lower-cost in the U.S. [1/x]
    user avatar
    Arnold Ventures
    @Arnold_Ventures
    May 16, 2023
    Arnold Ventures is excited to formally announce the launch of our bold new infrastructure initiative, which will support research, policy development, and advocacy aimed at building U.S. infrastructure faster, better, and at lower cost. (1/) arnoldventures.org/work/infrastru…
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    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 12, 2020
    THREAD: As an economic staffer in Congress, I’m worried we’re about to watch a slow-motion train wreck. More than 80,000 Americans are dead. Unemployment is at Great Depression levels. Yet, Congress appears prepared to massively undershoot what’s needed. 1/
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    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 12, 2020
    Replying to @EconCharlie
    The dysfunction is not symmetrical. The modern-day Republican Party’s implosion has been decades in the making. Trump is simply the apotheosis of long-running moral and intellectual decay, symptom not cause. The logical conclusion of anything-goes negative partisanship. 6/
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    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 12, 2020
    Replying to @EconCharlie
    From up close, it feels like we are sleepwalking toward a gut-wrenching, painful failure. Many are really trying to shake the system awake. But inertia feels like it’s taking us inevitably toward a half-hearted, incoherent response. It’s extremely frustrating. 2/
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    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 12, 2020
    Replying to @EconCharlie
    Yet, McConnell and the Administration are ready to block relief that would avert unnecessary pain. Their stated excuse? The risks posed by rising deficits. As if those risks – distant and uncertain – outweigh the risks of the immediate and inevitable brutality of this crisis. 9/
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    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 12, 2020
    Replying to @EconCharlie
    I hope I’m wrong, but this feels inevitable. I don’t see how the dynamic changes much. I see Republicans becoming increasingly dug in around cost concerns that make very little sense. The cost of insufficient action is devastating. I don’t know what else to say. 16/16
  • user avatar
    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 12, 2020
    Replying to @EconCharlie
    The stakes are extremely high. Economic failure risks: -Severe, lasting hardship for tens of millions of people; -Brutal cutbacks to health care, education, public safety, transportation, basic services; -Wide-ranging business failures making temporary job loss permanent. 3/
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    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 12, 2020
    Replying to @EconCharlie
    Even after 11 years of contending with appallingly destructive GOP behavior, I’m stunned by what I’m seeing. Usually you can trust McConnell to do what’s in his party’s self-interest. Right now, even that intuition does not seem to anchor their actions. All bets are off. 7/
  • user avatar
    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 12, 2020
    Replying to @EconCharlie
    I do econ policy, so I experience the inability of our political system to rise to the moment most directly in the economic realm, but it does not take any health policy expertise to see the dysfunction infecting the public health response in a more immediately lethal manner. 4/
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    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 12, 2020
    Replying to @EconCharlie
    I’ve seen ugly policymaking, but I’ve never been so dejected. Congress appears to be on its way to passing a half-assed bill that underachieves on public health, families/workers, state/local governments, businesses. And that insufficient support will cut off too soon. 15/
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    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 12, 2020
    Replying to @EconCharlie
    With a political system already buckling under the accumulation of decades of extreme partisanship, tens of thousands of additional preventable deaths followed by another Great Recession also carries with it the risk of societal breakdown. 5/
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    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 12, 2020
    Replying to @EconCharlie
    Republicans control the White House & Senate. They’ll be held accountable for COVID-19 outcomes. Though out of power, Democrats feel the onus to govern; we don’t use people as bargaining chips. That should mean Congress acts boldly and quickly. 8/
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    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 12, 2020
    Replying to @EconCharlie
    If Dems start at half a loaf, Republicans will cut that in half (or more) too. Due to “cost concerns” we risk underdoing unemployment benefits, housing, food assistance, health care. Instead of tying support to economic conditions, they’ll have an arbitrary sunset. 12/
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    Charlie Anderson
    @EconCharlie
    May 12, 2020
    Replying to @EconCharlie
    McConnell’s hostage-taking and extremism even risks limiting the ambition of Democrats’ opening offer. Instead of proposing the “right answer” policy, at the scope and scale of the challenge, I fear we are likely to underdo our ask in the hope of appearing more “reasonable.” 11/