Trump's Rose-Colored Forecasts Surprisingly Accurate

Veronique de Rugy
   
Much of my time is spent criticizing politicians for misrepresenting the impact of their policies. So, for once, I’d actually like to note an area where the Trump White House has represented the impact of its policies more accurately, and even better, than any other administration: economic growth forecasts. It may not sound like much, and I’d rather they balance the budget, but that’s a start.

The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 requires that each administration report “the economic and programmatic assumptions” underlying a budget. The result is a database of every administration’s growth forecasts released since 1975. Using this data, the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) just released a report showing that this administration “is the first on record to have experienced economic growth that meets or exceeds its own forecasts in each of its first two years in office.”

The report displays two charts that span the Carter administration through the Trump administration. One chart shows the first year in office, the other the second year, and each show what the administration forecasted growth to be versus what was achieved.

For both years, the Trump administration’s actual growth was equal or slightly higher than the projected growth rates. While it forecasted growth of 2.3 percent during Trump’s first year in office, it reached 2.5 percent. In the second year, its projection of 3.1 percent was equal to actual growth.

By comparison, President George W. Bush’s projections were seriously off during his first year in office. His administration predicted 2.6 percent growth but only achieved 0.2 percent. His second-term projections were again overly optimistic by nearly a full percent. Growth projections for his father, President George H. W. Bush, were off by 0.6 percent during his first year and by 1.7 percent in his second year. President Ronald Reagan’s projections were only off by 0.1 percent in his first year, but his forecast was off by 4.6 percent during his second year due to a recession.

The Trump administration’s accuracy is an interesting anomaly. CEA acknowledges, “Forecasting macroeconomic growth is never an exact science.” This is true, regardless of which public entities published the forecast. It’s also generally true, regardless of the country. Back in 2011, Harvard economist Jeffrey Frankel published a National Bureau of Economic Research paper on the unreliability of economic forecasting. Frankel looked at data from 33 countries and found a systematic bias toward overly optimistic official forecasts for gross domestic product and budget balances.

Overly optimistic assumptions for economic growth lead to over-optimism in budget estimates. Frankel suggests that the “average upward bias in the official forecast of the budget balance, relative to the realized balance, is 0.2 percent of GDP at the one-year horizon, 0.8 percent at the two-year horizon, and 1.5 percent at the three-year horizon.” However, Frankel notes the United States tends to be even more overly optimistic than other countries: “The U.S. and UK forecasts have substantial positive biases around 3 percent of GDP at the three-year horizon (approximately equal to their actual deficit on average; in other words, on average they repeatedly forecast a disappearance of their deficits that never came).”

Unsurprisingly, optimism bias is more pronounced during boom times, or times of economic prosperity. Yet Frankel found that optimism also persists during busts: “Evidently official forecasters … over-estimate the permanence of the booms and the transitoriness of the busts.”

While the Obama administration got tripped up by how long the burst lasted, the Trump administration could get cocky about the longevity of the boom. His latest budget projects 10 straight years of 3 percent real growth, but if this forecast fails to materialize, it will make the budget deficits and debt levels worse than projected.

Interestingly, the CEA report adopts a posture of humility by not taking too much credit for the forecasting performance of the administration’s first two years, noting, “Forecasts today could perform better than forecasts in the past, for instance, due to improvements over time in the economics literature. The data seem consistent with at least this pattern: this Administration, as the figures in aggregate show, is the first on record to have experienced economic growth that meets or exceeds its own forecasts in each of its first two years in office.”

I suspect this humility will serve the administration well, as we advance through this president’s term and future forecasts.

SOURCE

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Gavin Newsom's death-row betrayal

by Jeff Jacoby

ON JUNE 15, 1990, Rosie Alfaro went to the house of a friend in Anaheim, Calif. She thought no one would be home, and planned to break in and steal valuables to sell for drug money.

But the house wasn't empty. The door was opened by 9-year-old Autumn Wallace, who recognized her older sister's friend, and let her in when she said she needed to use the bathroom. As Autumn returned to what she had been doing — coloring paper dolls with crayons — Alfaro took a knife from the kitchen. Then, pretending she needed help with an eyelash curler, she coaxed Autumn into the bathroom and stabbed the little girl 57 times. Autumn bled to death on the bathroom floor, and Alfaro stole household items that she later sold for less than $300.

At trial two years later, Alfaro was sentenced to death. Superior Court Judge Theodore Millard called the murder of Autumn Wallace the most "senseless, brutal, vicious, and callous" killing he had ever encountered. After 15 years of delays and appeals, the California Supreme Court unanimously upheld the lawfulness of Alfaro's punishment.

That punishment has never been imposed. Though California has the largest death row in the nation, it hasn't executed a murderer since 2006. If the state's new Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, gets his way, that won't change: Newsom last week announced a unilateral reprieve for all 737 capital murderers on California's death row. In effect, he declared that should any execution be scheduled while he is in office, he will use his authority to grant temporary reprieves to block it. Newsom made it one of his first priorities to ensure that neither Alfaro nor any other killer awaiting punishment in California is ever put to death.

At Alfaro's trial, her defense lawyer urged the jury to reject the death penalty, which he said should be reserved for serial killers. There are plenty of them on Death Row, too — monsters like Chester Turner, who murdered 14 women, one of them pregnant, between 1987 and 1998, and Eric Leonard, who in 1991 gunned down three people in a Sacramento market for kicks, then a week later killed three more in a pizza parlor. Indeed, among the inmates Newsom has pledged to keep alive are 160 murderers each of whom was convicted of killing at least three victims. There are 25 prisoners on Death Row who slaughtered six or more human beings apiece.

Capital punishment is a controversial subject in California. Through ballot propositions, voters have repeatedly been asked to abolish the death penalty — and have repeatedly upheld it instead. During Newsom's tenure as lieutenant governor and campaign for governor, the subject came up often. In 2012, he vigorously supported Proposition 34, a well-funded initiative to replace capital punishment with life imprisonment. After that attempt failed, he just as vigorously supported Proposition 62, another initiative to end the death penalty. It too was defeated.

As a gubernatorial candidate, Newsom solemnly pledged to abide by the voters' death-penalty decisions, despite disagreeing with them. He promised to be "accountable to the will of the voters" and not let his "personal opinions" interfere with "the public's right to make a determination" about capital punishment. His spokesman last year told the San Francisco Chronicle that Newsom "recognizes that California voters have spoken on the issue and [would] respect the will of the electorate." In editorial-board meetings, Newsom agreed that "it would be an affront for a governor to say 'Here's what I'm going to do by fiat.'"

His word was not to be trusted.

Newsom plainly believes his betrayal will benefit him politically. He is being cheered by many on the left — including, it should be said, many liberals appalled by President Trump's unilateral declaration of a "national emergency" at the border. Rachel Maddow hailed him on her MSNBC show the other night as "a potential vice presidential choice."

Double-dealing politicians are not a new phenomenon; neither is Newsom's reputation for deceit. And in practical terms, the governor's reprieve for everyone on death row changes little: Executions weren't being carried out in California anyway. Newsom's decree means only that the justice long ago promised to Autumn Wallace, and to so many hundreds of other murder victims, will go on being denied. The depraved killers who sent them to early graves will never pay the penalty that judges, juries, and appellate courts — and voters — all agreed they should pay. California's worst murderers can look forward to living to a ripe old age, adding pitiless insult to unspeakable injury, as a smug and preening governor does his best to make sure that murder in his state will not be taken too seriously.

SOURCE 

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CNN Political Commentator Goes FULL Racist, Shouts: President Trump Is A ‘White Nationalist’

Despite constantly condemning white nationalists, President Trump is still referred to by many on the left as a …wait for it… white nationalist.

Friday on CNN’s “The Lead,” network political commentator Symone Sanders reacted to President Donald Trump’s statements on white nationalism one day after the mass shooting at two New Zealand mosques that left 49 dead.

When asked if white nationalism is a rising threat, Trump said, “I don’t, really. It’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems. I guess, if you look at what happened in New Zealand, perhaps that’s a case.”  .....

She added, “I believe Donald Trump is a white nationalist. I believe he has allied himself with white supremacist ideology for the very reason, given the policies he has advocated for. He said, just in the remarks in Oval Office, that invaders are coming, these criminals. He is other people, and that type of language is dangerous.”

According to the far-left outlet’s own fact sheet, CNN is currently available in 90 million households. This means 90 million people pay money to CNN every month even though fewer than one million on average actually watch CNN.

It is called a carriage fee, and every month you subsidize this hate network to the tune of about $1.00 a month, or around $12.00 a year.

That means the welfare queens at CNN snatch about $90 million a month just because the game is rigged to force you to pay for a propaganda outlet that encourages and legitimizes violence, a hate network that runs one blacklisting campaign after another to de-platform conservatives or anyone who challenges that establishment.

The bottom line is that CNN needs, nay, must do better. The nonsense and hatred that emanates from the network toward Trump and workaday Republicans is beyond the pale – even for them.

SOURCE 

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Israel Thanks US for Targeting Int’l Criminal Court Probe: ‘This Court Has Lost its Way’

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu thanked the Trump administration Wednesday for its decision to bar admission to anyone involved in an International Criminal Court probe into alleged U.S. abuses in Afghanistan.

Israel and others share U.S. concerns that “this court has lost its way,” he said.

“Instead of dealing with mass atrocities, the court engages in unwarranted and politicized efforts to target the states that are committed to the rule of law and that have not joined the court,” Netanyahu said during a joint appearance in Jerusalem with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“It’s exact opposite of what it should be doing.”

Netanyahu said the fact Pompeo had spoken out against that was “of stellar importance.”

“I thank the United States for taking the moral and necessary steps to protect the citizens of both our countries against this outrageous distortion of international law.”

Neither the U.S. nor Israel ratified the ICC’s founding Rome Statute, which was adopted in 1998 and came into effect in 2002.

Washington’s key concern was that troops stationed abroad could find themselves hauled before the tribunal. President Clinton signed the treaty, but chose not to seek Senate advice and consent. The George W. Bush administration then signed more than 100 agreements with nations undertaking not to surrender U.S. citizens to the ICC without U.S. consent.

Israel, although an early proponent of the initiative, walked away over the decision to classify Jewish settlement on disputed territory (“the transfer of an occupying power’s population into a territory it occupies”) as a war crime punishable by the court.

Of ten situations currently undergoing “preliminary examination” by the ICC prosecutor’s office, those focusing on Afghanistan and the disputed territories are among the most politically sensitive:

--Allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity by U.S. troops and CIA personnel in Afghanistan and at secret facilities in eastern Europe since 2002-3

--Allegations of war crimes committed by Israeli personnel in “the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem,” since a mid-2014 date that marked the run-up to the Israel-Hamas conflict that year.

On Friday, Pompeo announced that the U.S. will bar entry to and withhold visas from anyone “directly responsible for any ICC investigation of U.S. personnel,” and that those restrictions may also be applied “to deter ICC efforts to pursue” personnel of allies, including Israelis, without their consent.

“We are determined to protect the American and allied military and civilian personnel from living in fear of unjust prosecution for actions taken to defend our great nation,” he said.

The action followed a warning by National Security Advisor John Bolton last fall, that the U.S. not only would not cooperate with the court, but would take punitive measures if it pursues U.S. citizens.

The U.S. would “not sit quietly” if the ICC continues action against Israel or other allies, Bolton said at the time. (Another ICC preliminary probe deals with allegations of war crimes by British personnel during the Iraq War.)

Cooperation prohibited under US law

While the U.S. and Israel are not party to the Rome Statute, Afghanistan is, and in 2015 the “State of Palestine” was allowed to join despite not being a sovereign entity. Two weeks later the court’s chief prosecutor in The Hague launched a “preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine.”

The ICC’s Afghanistan probe relates to allegations of “torture, outrages upon personal dignity and rape and other forms of sexual violence” by U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan, and by CIA personnel in Afghanistan and at covert facilities in Poland, Romania and Lithuania.

The investigation is also looking into alleged abuses by the Taliban and Haqqani network terrorist groups, and by the Afghan armed forces.

Apart from the fact that the U.S. is not a party to the ICC treaty, U.S. law also forbids cooperation with the tribunal.

The American Service Members’ Protection Act, signed by Bush in 2002, prohibits the use of federal funds “for the purpose of assisting the investigation, arrest, detention, extradition, or prosecution of any United States citizen or permanent resident alien by the International Criminal Court.”

Under the Rome Statute’s “principle of complementarity,” the ICC may exercise jurisdiction only where national legal systems fail to do so, or when they are unwilling or unable genuinely to prosecute.

In 2006, the Bush administration reported to a U.N. body in Geneva that it had carried out more than 600 criminal investigations into alleged mistreatment by personnel in the campaign against terrorism. It said more than 250 individuals had been held accountable for detainee abuse, with punishments including prison terms of up to ten years.

Reacting to Pompeo’s announcement, the president of the ICC Assembly of the 122 countries now party to the treaty, P-Gon Kwon of South Korea, said the ICC is “non-political.”

The assembly was committed to preserve the ICC’s integrity, “undeterred by any threats against the court, its officials and those cooperating with it,” he said.

SOURCE 

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