This is horrific.
Donald Trump is again breaking all precedent by refusing to release the formal economic projections compiled by the federal government to assist people in assessing the state of the economy and the country. Yes, the man who says he built “the greatest economy in the history of the world,” now won’t let you see the real numbers with respect to the American economy. He surely knows they will be bad numbers. He had no problem releasing them when the unemployment rate was low. Only now.
This is what dictators do. Dictators are the ones who control the information people see. Dictators manipulate what the government releases, and it only ever releases “good news,” not the real news. The U.S. government used to be the world leader in being above all that. It was simply unthinkable.
We never considered having a Donald Trump, wanna-be dictator. From the Washington Post [1]:
The White House is supposed to unveil a federal budget proposal every February and then typically provides 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.
So just like his taxes, just like the evidence in his impeachment trial, Donald Trump has decided that you won’t see the numbers. You won’t analyze how the economy is doing. He is burying it, like a dictator, because you don’t get to see bad news.
IF the White House releases numbers or “facts” about something in the near future, is there any reason to trust those facts?
The White House says that because everything is so volatile, there is no point. Everything is changing so fast. That is actually the very reason why it is so critical to get that information to the public. They’re simply hiding:
“There is no logistical reason they couldn’t do it,” said Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center and former Republican staff director for the Senate Budget Committee. “It seems more likely they do not want to bring attention to the high level of unemployment they’d have to project for this year, and into next year.”
There is no logical reason? He just gave the “logical” reason. It is logical to Trump to bury bad news. He always has, he always will. He will decide what you get to see.
Does that sound like democracy to you?
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Peace, y’all
Jason — [email protected] and on Twitter @MiciakZoom