I was looking to see what the Administration’s Mid-Session Review economic forecast looked like. Alas, courtesy of Jared Bernstein, I am disappointed. Did Vought et al. purge all the economists from the CEA, Treasury and OMB? The MSR:
We’ll have to take it that the Administration’s forecast is then the same as those released in April (which were finalized in November 2025). I reprise from this August post, modified to add in today’s NY Fed nowcast:
Figure 1: Reported GDP (bold black), Administration’s FY2027 Budget forecast, aka OMB-Treasury-CEA “Troika” (red squares), WSJ April survey mean (blue), SPF median forecast (pink), Hassett 5% growth in 2027 (teal triangle), . Source: BEA, WSJ April survey, Philadelphia Fed, and author’s calculations.
Given reported GDP growth and the NY Fed nowcast, we are more on track with the April WSJ mean forecast than the Administration’s forecast.
“We know Bessent’s big deficit reduction plan is to “grow our way out of it!” Which is pure hand waving.” Bingo! I need to start following Jared on Bluesky.
We do have experience with a similarly arrogant budget release, just not from the U.S. In September of 2022, Prime Minister Liz Truss and Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng issued a budget-busting mini-budget with no economic estimates. The market response was for bad that most of the tax cuts were reversed in short order. Truss and Kwarteng were kicked out of office.
There was good reason for a bad reaction. Like the felon-in-chief and Treasury Secretary Bessent, Truss and Kwarteng blithely claimed that growth would cure any deficit problems, while the government debt stood at 95% of GDP. The British buffoons, like ours, expanded the fiscal deficit at a time of high inflation and supply disruptions. The BOE had begun to hike rares, but was slow in doing so, priming market participants to sell bonds at the first sign of trouble. In response to the egotistical nonsense of doing no economic math while ballooning the deficit, the 10-year Gilt yield rose from 2.3% in August to 3.5% at year’s end, while mortgage rates jumped from the mid-3% level to just under 6%.
The one claim the Tory idiots could use to excuse their hubris is that nobody had ever done something this stupid before, so how could they have known markets would respond badly? Our idiots don’t have that excuse.
I guess it goes without saying, but the felon-in-chief has already lost the support of anyone who cares about good governance, and most everyone who understands what good governance means. Why bother with economic estimates, even dummied-up estimates, if they offer no personal benefit?
Testosterone shots, monuments, wars of choice, tariffs as a universal threat, meme coins, firing generals, cooing blond assistants – it all makes an aged pervert feel good. Egg-head analysis just gets in the way of whatever good feeling still penetrates the dementia.
Current Trump administration/GOP is a corrupt Know Nothing Party – Climate change is a hoax – Trump admin is defunding NOAA and trump admin using FEMA to fund state and local entities to detain undocumented migrants while they await deportation and tying disaster relief to ICE compliance. Trump admin defunding food safety monitoring network leading to some of the worst food poisoning outbreaks in years. Trump admin instituting vaccine misinformation at CDC in the face of the worst measles outbreak in decades and ensuring U.S. loses it’s measles eliminated status. trump trashing several Washington D.C. monuments and turning the Reflecting Pool into a trashy cesspool. 18 U.S. service member deaths and approx. 800 total casualties (so far) along with estimated 3,400 to 6,000 Iranian deaths including 168 children killed in a single strike on a girls’ elementary school (for which the UN has called for an independent investigation) = Trump calls the Iranian war “small potatoes” Trump admin continues with the firehose of s*** by starting a illegal trade war with our largest trading partner.
They don’t want economists – they want story tellers.
Ah those were heady days for the Trump administration – back when we all hoped the SC would rule the illegal tariffs were indeed illegal (not realizing trump would just go ahead and put on another set of illegal tariffs) and the illegal never ending war with Iran had not started yet and the all out trade war with Canada had not started and we were just getting started with restrictive immigration and deportation to subtract an estimated 600,000 25-55 year old workers leading to elevated services costs.
Why is a one month trump job report of 160,000 described as a “blockbuster” when the average during Biden and Dems was 290,000 to 330,000 jobs per month, And during 2024 it averaged 100,000+ My analysis looking at the trends in the LFPR the past six months – indicates that the majority of new entrants in the labor force are age 55+ and the core working age labor force has barely changed or decreased slightly. Does anyone remember when the June jobs report indicated a single-month decline of approximately 720,000 people exiting the labor force – maybe a lot of those – looked around and thought geez with trump induced inflation maybe I should keep working. Job growth during the second Trump administration has averaged roughly 80,000 roles per month through mid-2026 – sorry Kevin H. 80,000 per month is not a “golden age” – it is just Slowing growth during trumpian High interest rates, high Inflation and Terrible policies.
Biden had 740,000 per month in 2024 deported falling to 480,000 last year with the number so far this year around 600,000. Illegal immigrants do not count in these stats and with the slowdown in hiring, there are no demand for them like after reopening. Because the lag is catching up to the Boomer exodus from 2021-23. Which is also driving down CPS.
Biden job growth by the end of 2024 was no better than today. The AI boom probably extended this expansion by a couple of years, but signs of peak are occurring. Disinflation is coming and needed.
Conniesimmons is Johnnydean is Realtruth is…
Little Johnny’s grammar was not good, but better than this. I guess bad grammar is part of the disguise.
Agree – it went straight from confused brain to ye old tastatur – without a single stop at “lets think about it” or “lets at least check the grammar”.
Remember when “Connie” (Johnny) told us that immigration enforcement no longer had any effect on employment statistics? How we were all sooooo wrong to think immigration enforcement matters? Well, if I had said something that stupid, I might change names, too.
A new surge in arrests, with a concentration on non-criminals who’ve registered with authorities, because they’re easy to get and the ICE guys are just meeting quotas. Who cares about economic or social effects, right?
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6072318-ice-arrests-surge-non-criminals/
And then there are the 300,000+ Haitians (among others) who have just lost temporary protective status and are being rounded up and deported:
https://www.latintimes.com/haitis-tps-protection-gone-heres-what-300000-plus-haitians-us-need-know-now-598467
So glad Connie/Johnny is here to provide us with “Realtruth”.
Looks like some U.S. administration insiders are leaking like crazy in opposition to the current handling of the Iran war. The latest shows up as coverage of U.S. intelligence saying Iran welcomes an escalation of the war ahead of U.S. mid-term elections:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/04/us/politics/iran-war-intelligence-reports.html
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-intelligence-warns-iran-unlikely-ease-hormuz-strait-chokehold-soon-sources-2026-04-03/
These reports are hardly novel; they are consistent with earlier intelligence leaks and with what’s been in the press since the war began. They follow chatter from political insiders urging a cooling of the war ahead of the elections:
https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-aides-fearing-midterm-rout-push-keep-iran-war-quiet-now-2026-09-02/
The U.S. has just escalated attacks on Iran and the latest from the felon-in-chief is that he’s happy to keep the war going. This new batch of leaked opposition to current policy is coincident with Dan Driscoll throwing in the towel at Army. The Army is now operating with vacancies in its top two positions, with more turnover at the top under discussion. Meanwhile, Hegseth is leading a witch hunt to find out who told the press we’re running out of clever weapons – as if that’s not common knowledge.
This all seems pretty standard for an organization in the midst of failure. The top guys refuse to admit they’ve smooched the pooch, and toss out anyone who says they have. The next rank down, realizing the truth is unwelcome inside the organization, begin leaking like crazy. Remember the second Iraq war? Same pattern.
Facts Only
* Figure 1 compares Reported GDP (bold black), Administration’s FY2027 Budget forecast ("Troika" in red squares), WSJ April survey mean (blue), SPF median forecast (pink), Hassett 5% growth in 2027 (teal triangle).
* The comparison suggests the Administration’s forecast is less aligned with the April WSJ mean forecast than other forecasts when considering reported GDP growth and the NY Fed nowcast.
* The UK's September 2022 mini-budget lacked economic estimates.
* In the UK situation, 10-year Gilt yields rose from 2.3% in August to 3.5% at year’s end, and mortgage rates increased from the mid-3% level to just under 6%.
* Job growth during the Trump administration averaged roughly 80,000 roles per month through mid-2026.
* Biden job growth by the end of 2024 was no better than the current reported figures for some months.
* Arrests related to ICE activity included non-criminals.
* Data cited concerns the impact of immigration enforcement on employment statistics and labor force participation.
* Intelligence reports indicated that Iran welcomed an escalation of war ahead of U.S. mid-term elections.
Executive Summary
Full Take
The narrative structure relies on establishing a pattern: when economic estimates are omitted or ignored in favor of ideological goals, market reactions are punitive, and internal accountability breaks down, leading to a cycle where external threats (like geopolitical conflict) are managed without proper estimation. The underlying tension is between policy driven by immediate political goals versus the necessity of rational, data-informed decision-making. The critique against ignoring economic math suggests that the absence of these calculations serves an egoistic or ideologically driven purpose, which inherently breeds instability, as evidenced by the historical financial fallout from the UK example. A critical pattern observed is the hierarchy of truth: established experts and market reactions (the economy) are systematically dismissed in favor of emotionally resonant narratives ("story tellers"), suggesting a systemic resistance to objective reality within political structures. This dynamic shifts agency away from quantifiable outcomes toward performative, identity-based signaling.
* BRIDGE QUESTIONS: If economic estimates are intentionally omitted to serve political ends, what mechanisms can be established to force the inclusion of unbiased economic modeling into high-stakes policy formation? How does the dismissal of empirical data erode public trust in governmental forecasting when crises occur? What structural changes are necessary to reward evidence-based governance over performative leadership?
* COUNTERSTRIKE SCAN: A hypothetical attack pattern would involve framing any attempt at economic analysis as inherently corrupt or divisive, leveraging historical failures (like the mini-budget) to dismiss all quantitative reasoning as dangerous. The current content largely aligns with this by focusing intensely on the punitive market consequences of ignoring estimates and linking policy choices directly to moral failings.
* ROOT CAUSE: The narrative appears driven by a skepticism toward centralized authority and a belief that real governance requires objective, rational constraint, which is being superseded by performative leadership.
* IMPLICATIONS: When economic analysis is rejected in favor of ideological narratives, the primary cost is the erosion of predictable governance and the introduction of volatility into markets and public life, disproportionately affecting those who rely on stable frameworks for planning.