Trump Budget Uses Nonsense Growth Estimates

I didn’t waste any time yesterday looking at the economic assumptions in the president’s budget, but it turns out they’re pretty spectacular:

For no particular reason, Trump has instructed that growth over the next ten years will be 3 percent—so that’s what his economic advisers gave him. It’s not uncommon for budget documents to fudge a little bit, perhaps assuming an optimistic 2.3 percent growth instead of the consensus 2.1 or 2.2, for example. But Trump’s budget is just straight science fiction. There’s no longer even a pretense of using consensus figures.

Just for comparison, the CBO projects an average growth rate a full percentage point lower than the Trump White House. The IMF is a shade lower over the next five years. The World Bank agrees.

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No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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