Trump Administration Finally Admits the Economy Isn’t Booming

Here’s an unexpected jolt of reality from the Trump administration:

President Trump’s top economists predict the U.S. economy will not grow at a rate of 3 percent or higher this year unless Congress enacts a major infrastructure package and additional tax cuts….In the annual Economic Report of the President released on Thursday, Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers predicts that if the president and Congress do not make further policy changes, the U.S. economy will grow at a 2.4 percent annual pace this year and at a 2.3 percent pace in 2021. That kind of growth is well below what Trump promised and similar to what occurred under President Barack Obama.

In other words, the economy is going to continue growing at about the same steady rate it’s been growing for the past decade. The nonsensical projections of 3+ percent growth that the Trumpies made in order to get elected were just that: nonsensical. Or, in the usual vernacular, they were lies. It’s not as if Trump’s economists haven’t known this all along, after all.

As for Trump himself, he hasn’t commented yet. When he does, I suppose he’ll whine yet again about how the mean old Federal Reserve is keeping interest rates too high. You may judge for yourself:

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

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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