Battling Democratic Think Tanks: EPI vs. Brookings

Positing that progressive populists are on the ascent, this NYT story from last week (Here Come the Economic Populists) nicely sketches out some of the dynamics going on among various parts of the Democratic policy world.

In particular, it charts how centrist Clinton-era thinking (aka Rubinomics) coming out of Brookings and the newer Hamilton Project may now have lost some of its hold on Democratic politicians, creating room for ideas and proposals from formerly outre outfits like the Economic Policy Institute and a new umbrella organization called Shared Prosperity.

As usual, education policy is barely a part of the discussion, compared to issues like globalization, trade, and health care policy. And, as the article points out, not only are the various Democratic camps not so different on some key issues, they also have limited ability to address some of the problems of wage inequality etc. that they see.