Biden's advocate for taxing the rich to leave White House
One of the Biden administration’s most outspoken proponents for taxing the rich to finance the president’s economic agenda is leaving the administration at the end of the week.
David Kamin, a former Obama administration tax and budget official, joined the National Economic Council as deputy director at the start of Joe Biden's presidency and before that served on the campaign’s transition team. His last day is Friday.
“It has been a tremendous honor and a great job, but one with a timeline from the start,” Kamin told POLITICO. “And now it’s time for me to be back in NYC with my family.”
To fill Kamin’s role, the White House is tapping economist Aviva Aron-Dine, who is currently executive associate director of the Office of Management and Budget and an expert on health and budget policy.
Kamin, who is on leave as a professor from New York University Law School, was a chief architect of Biden’s plans to raise taxes on wealthy Americans to pay for his sweeping social spending plans, and wrote a widely circulated memo in 2015 on “How to Tax the Rich.”
But some of those efforts have failed to gain traction in Congress, including Biden’s proposal to end provisions in the code known as “stepped-up basis at death,” which can allow wealthy people to pass assets on to heirs tax-free.
Meanwhile, the president’s broader agenda has stalled amid disagreements with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), whose support Democrats need to advance a bill without Republican votes.
Kamin, who has been commuting from New York for the past two years, said he plans to return to his teaching job at NYU Law later this summer.
NEC Director Brian Deese, in a statement Thursday, said Kamin “has an unmatched combination of policy capability and selflessness, and has helped improve the lives of millions of Americans in service to his country. We will miss him dearly but are glad that he will be returning to his family and his passion for teaching.”
Aron-Dine, who will take over for Kamin starting next month, also worked at the NEC in the Obama administration as well as OMB and the Department of Health and Human Services and has a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to joining the Biden administration, she was the vice president for health policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Deese said Aron-Dine will play a central role in helping advance the president’s economic agenda.
Jason Furman, who chaired the White House Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration, praised the pick.
Aron-Dine “manages to combine her brilliance with caring, strategic savvy and effectiveness, all of which will make her one of the only people that could have filled David Kamin’s very large shoes,” Furman said.
