The Wall Street Journal - 14.03.2020 - 15.03.2020

A12| Saturday/Sunday, March 14 - 15, 2020 **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

Above, Bernie Sanders spoke

about Medicare for All, his

national health-care plan, in Las

Vegas in December. Left,

supporters in Phoenix last week.

FROM TOP: KRYSTAL RAMIREZ/LAS VEGAS SUN/ASSOCIATED PRESS; CHRISTOPHER BROWN/ZUMA PRESS

boost gross domestic product,

business investment or corpo-

rate profits. With his “economic

bill of rights,” he wants Wash-

ington to guarantee all Ameri-

cans a job, health insurance,

college and housing.

Many Democratic econo-

mists “would argue those are

fine aspirations, but in order to

achieve them, you’d have to in-

tervene in markets beyond lev-

els they’re comfortable with,”

said Jared Bernstein, a senior

fellow at the left-leaning Center

on Budget and Policy Priorities

and the chief economist in the

Obama administration for then-

Vice President Biden.

Mr. Sanders proposes

sharply higher taxes, govern-

ment spending and regulation.

He would boost the size of the

federal government’s share of

GDP to a level exceeded only

during World War II.

While many Democrats over

the past few decades have tried

to balance government inter-

vention with market forces, Mr.

Sanders has less trust in mar-

kets to improve lives. On

Thursday, he said his big-gov-

ernment vision of a national

health-care plan and price con-

trols on drug companies would

put the country on stronger

footing to address crises such

as the coronavirus pandemic.

At times, he has dismissed

cost concerns outright. Asked

at a Feb. 18 CNN Las Vegas

town hall about the price and

feasibility of his plan to phase

out fossil fuels, he replied: “You

tell me how much is too much

if we’re talking about saving

this planet.”

Mr. Sanders wants to smash

the conventional wisdom that

he says has constrained think-

ing in Washington since Ronald

Reagan—a consensus that

treats higher taxes and new

government programs with

suspicion—and reopen discus-

sion of liberal ideas that ha-

ven’t been seriously considered

since the 1970s.

The candidate already claims

victory on that front, recount-

ing how proposals from his

failed 2016 bid, dismissed at

the time as too far left, have

since been embraced by Demo-

cratic party leaders.

One fight with Hillary Clin-

ton, who won the 2016 Demo-

cratic nomination, was over his

push to double the federal min-

imum wage to $15 an hour. The

Democratic-led House last year

passed a bill seeking to make

that law, while all his 2020 ri-

val candidates endorsed the

goal. Mr. Sanders’s 2016 pro-

posal for a Wall Street tax on

certain financial transactions

was also embraced by much of

the 2020 field. Mr. Biden’s cur-

rent positions on many issues,

such as expanding Social Secu-

rity and Medicare, have moved

him closer to Mr. Sanders than

the longtime Delaware politi-

cian has been for much of his

career.

“I have been called radical

and extreme,” Mr. Sanders said

in Iowa last year. “Over the last

four years...a whole lot of other

people have become radical and

extreme.”

Some mainstream center-left

economists praise Mr. Sanders’s

bid to shake up the Washington

consensus on restricting spend-

ing. “All upper-income democ-

racies in the world have much

more generous welfare states

than the U.S. and do fine,” said

Adam Posen, president of the

Peterson Institute for Interna-

tional Economics, a think tank

that has long advised both Re-

publican and Democratic ad-

ministrations. “We’ve gone so

far off the rails in terms of un-

derinvestment in the public

sphere that even a massive

shift would only get us part

way to where we should be.”

The Sanders campaign has

been the only major one in this

election cycle to avoid even

talking to top advisers of previ-

ous Democratic presidents.

Economists who weren’t part of

the Clinton or Obama adminis-

trations have been close to the

Sanders campaign. One is

Stephanie Kelton, a professor at

Stony Brook University in Stony

Brook, N.Y., who served as an

aide to Mr. Sanders on the Sen-

ate Budget Committee. She is

the leading proponent of “mod-

ern monetary theory,” which

argues that governments

shouldn’t fret over debt and

deficits.

Another is Darrick Hamilton

of Ohio State University, whose

work focuses on what he calls

“economic justice.” He aims to

narrow the wealth gap between

black and white households and

has been a proponent of the

federal job guarantee idea that

Mr. Sanders has endorsed.

Mr. Sanders’s wealth tax was

written with the help of two

French economists at the Uni-

versity of California, Berkeley,

Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel

Zucman.

The Progressive Policy Insti-

tute estimates that Mr. Sanders

is proposing adding just over

$50 trillion in spending over 10

years, nearly doubling the fed-

eral government’s current out-

lays. The new funds would

mainly be used to expand the

social safety net and infrastruc-

ture spending.

That is more than eight

times the spending proposed

by Mr. Biden, according to PPI.

Mr. Sanders would boost

taxes by more than $20 trillion

over 10 years, according to PPI,

by increases in income, payroll

and corporate taxes, as well as

the new wealth tax.

That is six times the hikes

laid out by Mr. Biden.

Most mainstream econo-

mists say spending and taxes

on that scale would so distort

the economy and private-sector

activity that it would under-

mine growth. They warn that

significantly higher tax rates

could damp incentives for busi-

nesses and individuals to in-

vest, while bigger payouts to

TheSanders-BidenEconomicBattle

The Democratic primary contest highlights the contrasting

economic visions of Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.

Proposedspendingincrease

byDemocraticcandidates

asapercentageofGDP

Note: Moving average of several major polls

Sources: the campaigns (spending); Office of Management and Budget, Congressional Budget Office

(federal outlays, GDP); Real Clear Politics (polls)

Nationalpollingaveragesfor

the2020Democraticprimary

Biden Sanders Others

2019 ’

0

10

30

20

50%

40

Sanders(2020)

McGovern (1972)

Biden(2020)

Obama (2008)

B. Clinton (1992)

H. Clinton (2016)

Kerry (2004)

19.8%

6.

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cal of his candidacy. “Poll after
poll...shows that a strong ma-
jority of the American people
support our progressive
agenda,” he said, in explaining
why he would continue his
campaign against front-runner
Joe Biden, despite two straight
weeks of primary losses and
calls for him to drop out and
unify the party against Mr.
Trump.
He vowed to use Sunday’s
debate, the first solely between
the two candidates, to press his
rival for detailed plans for ex-
panding health care, reducing
childhood poverty and curbing
the political power of billion-
aires. The candidates face pri-
maries on Tuesday in Arizona,
Florida, Illinois and Ohio.
Mr. Sanders’s bid to remake
Democratic economic thinking
remains one of the most in-
tense conflicts in this election
cycle, pitting him against afflu-
ent party donors and policy
makers who share many of his
general goals, but prefer a less
government-oriented, or more
tempered approach.
Surveys indicate a party
electorate torn. A February
Wall Street Journal/NBC News
poll showed 53% of Democratic
voters preferred a candidate
pushing Sanders-like “larger
scale policies that might cost
more” and “bring major
change,” versus 41% favoring a
Biden-like candidate “who pro-
poses smaller scale policies
that...will bring less change.”
But the same poll found
Democrats, by 53% to 42%, fa-
vored a candidate “with the
best chance to defeat Donald
Trump” over one “closest to
your views”—and they have in-
creasingly concluded Mr. Biden
has the best chance.
When Mr. Sanders, a self-
proclaimed democratic social-
ist, appeared ascendant last
month in the nominating con-
test, his sweeping platform of
national health care, universal
free college and a Green New
Deal drew blistering criticism
from Democratic stalwarts.
Harvard economist Law-
rence Summers, a top adviser
to both Presidents Clinton and
Obama, predicted “major ad-
verse consequences” for work-
ers, markets and business in-
vestment should Mr. Sanders
prevail. Former Obama White
House chief economist Jason
Furman, also now at Harvard,
said the Sanders program
would lead to “too many indi-
viduals too constrained from
choices” and “a weaker econ-
omy.” The Progressive Policy
Institute, a Washington center-
left think tank, branded the
platform “fiscal fantasy.”
None of that moved Mr.
Sanders to soften his policies.
Instead, Mr. Sanders and his
aides have blasted the criticism
and the critics as tainted and
out of touch. They blame mod-
erate Democratic economists
and think tanks, as much as Re-
publicans, for long-term wage
stagnation and other economic
worries still haunting millions
of Americans.
“We need to think outside
the box,” said Warren Gunnels,
Mr. Sanders’s policy adviser.
“Over the past 45 years we’ve
seen a massive increase in in-
come and wealth inequality
while the working class contin-
ues to struggle. It’s too late for
establishment economics.”
Mr. Sanders is more likely to
discuss fostering a “moral
economy” than strategies to

ContinuedfromPageOne

this constant “tau.”
The idea caught on with
other math rebels who would
like to see the world celebrate
Tau Day on June 28. But Dr.
Hartl admits the numbers are
against him. “Those who stub-
bornly cling to pi will always
find a way to rationalize their
error,” he says.
There have been some tau
victories. In 2013, the calculator
used by Google’s search engine
started recognizing tau. Micro-
soft’s Bing has yet to join the
tau party, although a spokes-
woman says the company’s
Math Solver app is tau-enabled.

ContinuedfromPageOne

At the Massachusetts Insti-

tute of Technology, they’ve

struck a compromise. While

MIT does inform high-school

students of its admission deci-

sions on Pi Day it now pub-

lishes the decisions at 6:28 p.m.

on weekdays, a nod to tau.

Archimedes took the first

shot at calculating pi, the num-

ber, but he didn’t name his con-

stant. Pi was popularized in the

1700s by Swiss mathematician

Leonhard Euler, considered one

of the greatest of his day. Start-

ing in the late 1980s, pi became

a geek juggernaut.

That’s when staff at the Ex-

ploratorium, a museum in San

Francisco, decided to host their

first Pi Day, or as Dr. Hartl calls

it, half-Tau Day.

Pi Day is the math world’s

annual bacchanal. The Explor-

atorium typically hands out

thousands of pieces of pie—

lemon meringue, pecan, apple

and chocolate cream—on

March 14. At 1:59 p.m.—159 be-

ing the three digits that follow

3.14 in pi—there’s a parade to a

pi shrine, where people walk

around it 3.14 times while sing-

ing “Happy Birthday” to Albert

Einstein, who was born on

March 14. This week, the mu-

seum said it is closing until the

end of March because of coro-

navirus precautions; instead, it

will have a virtual Pi Day.

“We just like pi,” says Ron

Hipschman, a science educator

at the Exploratorium. “Pi has a

history.” He isn’t opposed to

Tau Day. He just prefers to call

June 28 “2pi Day.”

Tauists say history is on

their side too. Euler, the Swiss

math whiz, himself was un-

steady in his use of the con-

stant—sometimes referring to

pi as 3.14, at other times dou-

bling that. “He was flip-flop-

ping all over the place,” says

Bob Palais, a math professor at

Utah Valley University, who

some consider to be the godfa-

ther of tau.

Twenty years ago, Prof. Pal-

ais realized his students were

having an easier time learning

trigonometry when they used

tau instead of pi.

To get pi, you divide the cir-

cumference of a circle by its di-

ameter. For tau, you divide by

the radius. So, to describe 3/

of a circle in trigonometry, you

would say 3/4 tau radians. But

in the pi world, that’s 3/2 pi ra-

dians. “Blegh!” says Prof. Palais.

“People are just so ingrained

that they don’t even see how

stupid it is.”

In 2001, Prof. Palais wrote a

paper titled “Pi is Wrong.” It

was the rallying cry for Dr.

Hartl, who followed nearly a

decade later with his own pub-

lication and a website titled

“The Tau Manifesto,” a 9,000-

word call-to-arms that lays out

the arguments for tau in excru-

ciating detail.

Tau quickly blew up in the

internet savvy tech community.

A video about tau went viral,

with over two million views. Dr.

Hartl says he started meeting

people at parties who would

make small talk by dissing pi in

favor of tau. “I knew that this

would be the geekier version of

pi,” he says.

Acceptance in the main-

stream mathematical commu-

nity, however, has been an up-

hill fight. Textbook publishers

are largely pi-loyalists. “They

are afraid of being mocked for

doing something different,” Dr.

Hartl says.

Much of the math establish-

ment remains unconvinced. Us-

ing tau would be akin to driv-

ing on the left-hand side of the

road; you’d still get where you

were going, but the driving

would be different, says Scott

Chapman, past editor of the

American Mathematical

Monthly. “It’s just a little

wrong,” he says.

Prof. Chapman says that

while the Tau Day vs. Pi Day

debate can get heated, it’s all in

good fun. “When you’re a

mathematician you really have

to have a little bit of a sense of

humor,” he says. “I mean, how

much do we have to celebrate?”

Moving the celebration

would have practical chal-

lenges. “If we went to Tau Day,

we’d go to June 28 and school

would be out,” says William

Dunham, a math historian and

research associate in mathe-

matics at Bryn Mawr College.

Prof. Dunham rejects the

tauists argument that removing

pi would restore elegant sim-

plicity to many mathematical

formulas. For example, the

mathematical formula known

as Euler’s equation is simpler

with tau. With pi, however, the

formula contains what Prof.

Dunham calls the “most famous

constants in mathematics,”—e,

i, pi,1 and 0. “If you were hav-

ing a party and wanted to in-

vite the greatest numbers in

the universe, you’d invite these

five,” he says.

households could curb incen-

tives to work. They add that at-

tempts by regulators to over-

ride market outcomes can

impose costly inefficiencies in

affected industries.

Mr. Gunnels, the Sanders

aide, dismissed concerns about

boosting the size of govern-

ment. “If we were a poor coun-

try...these would be legitimate

questions,” he said. “We’re not

living in a Third World country.

It’s not too much to ask that

everybody in this country has a

decent standard of living.”

Sanders allies said his plat-

form has successful parallels:

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1930s

New Deal, which created Social

Security and a raft of new gov-

ernment programs and regula-

tions; and Lyndon B. Johnson’s

1960s Great Society, which cre-

ated Medicare and new anti-

poverty initiatives.

Harvard’s Mr. Summers said

the scale of Mr. Sanders’s pro-

posals would far exceed any-

thing FDR or LBJ enacted, or

even what South Dakota Demo-

cratic Sen. George McGovern

proposed during his 1972 land-

slide loss to Richard Nixon, a

defeat that helped usher in the

party’s retreat from liberalism.

If Mr. Sanders enacted his

full program, government as a

share of GDP would jump from

the 2017 level of about 38%,

one of the lowest levels in the

developed world, according to

the Organization for Economic

Cooperation and Development,

to more than 50%. That is well

above any peacetime level in

U.S. history, but in line with Eu-

ropean countries such as

France and Denmark.

He also envisions a raft of

new government regulations,

from national rent control to

new rules for CEO pay to an

outright ban on fracking.

While some Democratic

economists prefer to address

climate change with market in-

centives, such as a carbon tax,

Mr. Sanders would rely more

on direct government orders.

To protect energy workers who

might lose their jobs, he prom-

ises five years of government-

guaranteed salary, plus housing

assistance, pension support and

retirement subsidies for those

who decide not to continue

working.

That “would be an utter

nightmare to enforce,” said

Dean Baker, an economist at

the liberal Center for Economic

and Policy Research, saying it

would be difficult to flesh out

the criteria for who exactly

would qualify.

Mr. Sanders would aim to

shrink the role of the financial

sector in the economy by,

among other things, breaking

up the largest banks, and reim-

posing Depression-era limits on

banking activity.

He would make it harder for

employers to fire workers,

unionized or not, and would re-

quire big companies to give

workers shares of company

stock and the right to choose

nearly half the seats on corpo-

rate boards. His goal is to recal-

ibrate the balance of power be-

tween corporations and unions,

who have seen their clout erode

steadily over the past 40 years.

“In Bernie Sanders’s world,

the market doesn’t come from

a state of nature, it comes out

of an allocation of power,” said

Robert Reich, a Berkeley public

policy professor, who served as

President Clinton’s labor secre-

tary and has periodically de-

fended Mr. Sanders against at-

tacks from other academics.

“The standard economic view is

that the market is filled with

potential win-win opportuni-

ties, but when you’re talking

about power, it’s more compli-

cated. Some people gain it and

others lose it.”

—Eliza Collins contributed

to this article.

Sanders

Holds On

To Vision

Pi Day’s

Spoiler May

Be Tau

FROM PAGE ONE