Dem
47
GOP
53
Another problem with educated people is that they tend to know what the real numbers are, or roughly what they should be, and so they can sniff out fake numbers. That is a problem for Trump, who is trying to create his own economic and statistical reality. Still, despite the fact that the nation's university system is still in operation, he's going to forge ahead with his imaginary numbers project. Yesterday, to replace the actually qualified, and recently fired, Dr. Erika McEntarfer at BLS, Trump tapped Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni.
On the surface, Antoni is qualified for the job, in the sense that he has Master's and Ph.D. degrees in economics, and he's worked in the public sector. However, he only completed his academic work in 2020, which means he's not exactly what you would call experienced. Further, his degrees are from Northern Illinois University. We certainly don't want to engage in "ranking snobbery," but we do think it is instructive that on his bio page at his current employer, he very noticeably avoids mentioning the name of his alma mater: "Antoni holds master's and doctoral degrees in Economics and regularly speaks at colleges and financial institutions."
More problematic than the strength of Antoni's qualifications, however, is the identity of the aforementioned current employer. It's the Heritage Foundation, the same right-wing think tank that employs Stephen Moore, the economist who visited the Oval Office last week to spin fantasies about the employment numbers. And before Antoni worked at Heritage, he worked at the right-wing Texas Public Policy Foundation. One hopes, for his sake, that there's enough oxygen in the bubble in which he lives.
Let us imagine that Trump had scoured the ranks of academia, and had appointed someone who is, say, a tenured faculty member from Wharton School of Business (Penn), or maybe the University of Chicago Department of Economics. If so, we would have approached the numbers with caution, but would have been open to at least the possibility they could be legit. Not too many academics are willing to sell out their reputations (and thus, their careers) for a couple of years in a government position. Plus, it's conceivable that someone might have persuaded Trump that, in the end, fake numbers will backfire on him.
But choosing someone from Heritage? Readers can reach their own conclusions, of course, but for our part, we are going to take anything that comes out of BLS for the next 3 years with multiple barrels of salt. A lightly qualified think tanker is exactly the type of person we would expect Trump to pick once he realized that he wasn't going to be able to get a more legitimate candidate to behave corruptly.
Oh, and just in case there is any doubt that the White House is trying hard to create its own economic reality, it was trying to make private a database that tracks federal spending. The obvious purpose here is to hide outlays on things that might not be so popular, and also to hide any (illegal) impoundment of funds. The administration lost in court yesterday, though the database has not been restored as of 3:00 a.m. PT on Tuesday. Whether the White House just didn't have time, or it's planning to appeal, or it's continuing with its general program of disregarding court orders, we cannot say. (Z)