February 24, 2017

Now that the Republicans are in charge of the economy....

Seriously, you don't even have to read between any lines in this interview with Steve Mnuchin, Trump's Investment Banker Treasury Secretary. He says it in plain language.

1. He treats the stock market as a "report card" for the Trump administration until it goes south.

2. He is committed to his bong pipe projection of 3% growth for the US economy.

3. His tax cut proposals will use "dynamic scoring." Which is another word for the Laffer Curve. Imaginary "tax cuts will grow the economy" BS. Same as Bush.

4. His priority is "tax reform," over lowering the debt, which, by the way, is all Obama's fault (not two Bush Wars or Bush tax cuts for the wealthy).

And the thing is, he says all of this to Maria Bartiromo, who moves on to the next question as if it's NOT bullsh*t. Catherine Rampell of the Wapo Editorial Page disagrees:

As the Wall Street Journal first reported (and as I’ve independently confirmed through my own sources), the Trump transition team instead ordered CEA staffers to predict sustained economic growth of 3 to 3.5 percent. The staffers were then directed to backfill all the other numbers in their models to produce these growth rates.

Set aside for a moment the sheer intellectual dishonesty of this approach.

No let's NOT set aside the intellectual dishonesty. They're cooking the books to get their tax cuts for billionaires.

We know what happens next.

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