The FY24 Budget came out today and I thought we should look at the GDP and inflation forecasts from our fearless leaders and their OMB experts.
Here is what I found by looking in the summary tables of the FY23 federal budget and the FY24 federal budget. Actuals are in red.
You can see that the nominal GDP forecasts and actuals are almost the same for the two budgets. But the growth and consumer price inflation are significantly different.
See the fearless forecast and actuals for the just ended 2022?
For 2022 Biden forecast 4.2% real growth and 4.7% consumer price increase.
Actual 2022 was 0.2% real growth and 8.1% consumer price inflation.
The OMB forecasts, experts agree, were not worth the paper they were printed on.
Does that mean that the OMB Keynesian economic models are just as useless as your average climate forecasting model? Or did they “tweak” their models to make the answers align with the political needs of the Biden administration? What do the experts think?
Now look at what the experts at the OMB forecast for this year. 2023.
Last year OMB forecast 2.8% real growth and 2.3% consumer price increase.
This year OMB forecasts 0.4% real growth and 4.3% consumer price increase.
Hey, next year, the presidential election year of 2024, everything will be copacetic, with real growth at 2.1% and consumer price inflation back down to 2.4%.
You think that growth this year and next will stay in the positive zone? Or do you think that with the fastest increases in interest rates in recorded history, the Jerome Powell Fed is sending the economy over the proverbial cliff?
I ain’t taking bets.