15 Facts About Oren Cass

Oren M Cass was born on 1983 and is an American public policy commentator and political advisor.

Oren Cass previously worked on the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney in 2008 and 2012.

Oren Cass authored a book, The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America.

Oren Cass attended Williams College, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in political economy.

Oren Cass took a six-month leave to work on the Mitt Romney 2008 presidential campaign, in which Romney was defeated in the presidential primary.

Oren Cass then enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he said he sought "to deepen his understanding of public policy" and established contact with Romney's staff, which hired him as a domestic policy advisor when Romney again ran for president in 2012.

Oren Cass worked for the next Romney operation in 2011 between his second and third years at Harvard, and ended up with so much in his portfolio that at the end of the summer "they sort of said, well, you have to stay".

Oren Cass became domestic-policy director while still in law school.

In 2018, Oren Cass published his book, The Once and Future Worker, which reevaluated American society, economics, and public policy, and introduces what he called "the Working Hypothesis: that a labor market in which workers can support strong families and communities is the central determinant of long-term prosperity and should be the central focus of public policy".

Oren Cass argues that the obsessive focus of policymakers and economists on "consumer welfare" is misguided because, as workers and productive contributors, people flourish and build strong families and communities.

Donald J Boudreaux of the American Institute for Economic Research disputed some of the book's positions, asserting that Cass focuses too heavily on the importance of production over consumption, to the point of extolling measures such as tariffs that coerce society into purchasing goods that would not be the first choice of uncoerced consumers.

Oren Cass has strongly defended Trump tariffs and the resulting inflation, instability and trade wars.

However, Oren Cass prefers a phase-in period because factories take time to build.

Oren Cass has advocated for unionization that enables workers to collectively bargain for sector-wide pay standards and working conditions.

In 2017, Oren Cass wrote an essay framing rejection of strong measures to combat climate change as a form of moderation, criticizing both those on the political right who question the validity of climate science and those on the political left he characterized as suffering from depression and misusing data to paint a picture of imminent catastrophe.