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I liked this Tim Wu column, which basically says that the public is center-left, but DC won't reflect those preferences 1/ nytimes.com/2019/03/05/opi…
One thing he doesn't emphasize, however, is that it's not just Congress and lobbyists; there's also conventional wisdom inside the Beltway, which tends to congeal around center-right doctrine even when true experts don't agree at all 2/
Classic case: Back in the ways when DC treated Bowles and Simpson as demigods, a central proposition of their screeds on fiscal responsibility was that ... marginal tax rates needed to be reduced! 3/ nytimes.com/2010/11/12/opi…
Where was that coming from? Not from economic analysis. At the very same time, Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez -- the very top people in the field – were producing analyses that said the opposite 4/ aeaweb.org/articles?id=10… 
A lot of this comes indirectly from the often hidden influence of big money, which gets to set the ground rules for what is considered serious. Always important to question CW, and ask where it really comes from 5/
