March 12, 2019

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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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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