White House ignoring economic projections
Operatives in Washington D.C. usually promise clear government transparency, but not this year.
White House officials have decided not to release updated economic projections this summer, according to a report by the Washington Post.
Three people in the know explained that publishing forecasts that would almost certainly codify an administration assessment that the Coronavirus pandemic has led to a severe economic downturn is canceled.
The White House is supposed to unveil a federal budget proposal every February and then typically provide a “mid-session review” in July or August with updated projections on economic trends such as unemployment, inflation and economic growth.
Budget experts said they were not aware of any previous White House opting against providing forecasts in this “mid-session review” document in any other year since at least the 1970s.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said that the novel Coronavirus is causing extreme volatility in the United States economy, making it difficult to model economic trends.
Normally, the document would be slated for publication just a few months before the November elections.
“It gets them off the hook for having to say what the economic outlook looks like,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who served as an economic adviser to the late senator John McCain (R. Ariz.), said.
Both liberal and conservative critics said the White House should publish its economic projections in line with the precedent set by prior administrations regardless of the uncertainty wrought by the pandemic.
A senior administration official said in a statement that it would be “foolish” to publish forecasting data when it “may mislead the public.”
The magnitude of the economic impact has grown by the week. The Treasury Department said earlier this month it plans to borrow $3 trillion from April through June to finance spending in response to the pandemic, while the monthly deficit in April soared to $738 billion.
On Thursday, the Labor Department reported that Americans filed another 2.1 million jobless claims last week, bringing the 10-week total to more than 40 million.
The White House staff is currently busy with implementing the $2 trillion Cares Act aid package approved by Congress in March.
Since the release of the White House budget in January, the unemployment rate has skyrocketed from about 3.5% to close to 15%.
President Trump has repeatedly expressed confidence in a rapid economic rebound from the virus, but mainstream economists and Wall Street forecasters have predicted unemployment could remain north of 10% through 2020 and 2021.
For the most part, the lack of a forecast document is simply just another scuttling of proper planning that is always needed for running a government budget.