With Growth Slowing, Trump Releases A Budget Devoid From Reality

This morning, the Trump administration released their budget request for 2020 and with it their economic projections for the next decade. Unfortunately, the document reads more like a Trump rally speech than a serious piece of economic literature, and contains projections at odds with virtually every independent analysis. The budget forecasts growth of 3.2% in 2019, even though the Fed, CBO, IMF, and every major bank (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of America for example) all project that 2019 growth will be 2.5% or less (the average 2019 projection for those seven organizations is just 2.2%). Even more implausible, Trump's budget forecasts that growth will stay at 3% and above through 2023. In reality, the IMF projects that US growth will be closer to 1.4% in 2023, while the CBO forecasts a growth rate of 1.7% in 2023. The administration's fiscal daydream doesn't stop here though. Much of the growth boost in 2018 came from sharply higher budget deficits that boosted aggregate demand (the deficit of 3.9% of GDP in 2018 was the largest deficit when unemployment was under 6% since 1950). Trump's budget, however, sees a budget deficit of 3.7% of GDP by 2023, compared to the CBO's current estimate of 4.6% in that year. What the administration is saying, then, is that they will have double the rate of growth in 2023 compared to CBO projections, while also having less fiscal stimulus than the CBO anticipates (stimulus that would presumably be necessary on an even larger level to achieve anywhere near 3% growth). 

Above all else, today's budget request is a desperate attempt to rewrite the economic narrative of the Trump presidency. Growth is slowing, not rising, and will likely hit its potential rate of 1.8% by 2020. This means that the President's promise that his tax cut would create sustainable long term growth above 3% was a lie. In addition, the budget deficit will continue to grow to unprecedented levels when outside of a recession (and indeed, the deficit for the first four months of FY 2019 is already 77% larger than the first four months of FY 2018). Trump's promise that his tax cut would pay for itself and that he'd balance the budget within his first term in office? Another lie. So far in Trump's presidency, growth has been strong because of a large fiscal stimulus that, while having little effect on long term growth and blowing up the deficit, increased short term growth. Now that the stimulus is wearing off, however, the reality of Trump's poor economic policies is becoming clear, something that could be politically disastrous for him in 2020. 

Weekly Notes On The Economy is a weekly column that NDN writes on the most recent economic news, policy, and data.