Former White House official says D.C. establishment not working

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Former White House official says D.C. establishment not working

In an interview with Maria Friday, former White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Tomas Philipson argued that a strategy that doesn't work for the D.C. establishment is a strategy that forecasts the US economy and time policy is a strategy that's not working for the D.C. establishment.

TOMAS PHILIPSON: It's not a joke for Americans to see their paychecks carry less and less when they start to buy things. But it's a general problem with what economists call a cadency economist, which I'm certainly not in the camp on, but pretty much the whole D.C. establishment is in that camp. They think that government officials understand the economy and can time policy, even though no one can.

Not even the private sector on Wall Street, which has better incentives to forecast the economy, but to time policy, it's like planning a wedding on a sunny day. You can't forecast the weather because you can't do it. This is just a Groundhog Day of cadency and policy going wrong when government officials don't understand what's going on and so are mistime things.