I think the point is that learning to program is not necessarily equivalent to learning to think better. They may learn to program, and not learn to think better. Which is what this whole thing is about. Should we be telling people "you need to learn to code" to possibly fuel an economic hole, or should we be telling them "We want to teach you a valuable way to think and reason by using programming" which may address future economic and social needs?
"Think better" is a pretty nebulous term but I'm not sure you can learn any new field - especially not one concerning a new manner of problem solving - and not have learnt to "think better".
There are lots of CS students who haven't learnt to "think better". They can type out symbols, and know what those symbols mean individually, but they can't combine them in meaningful ways without lots of prompting.
