The White House will break with precedent by opting against releasing an economic forecast that would spell out more coronavirus gloom just months before November's presidential election.
Administrations are required by law to issue budget proposals in February. White Houses then typically issue a mid-year fiscal update that includes economic trend data on things like unemployment and economic growth. The Trump administration plans to leave the economic data out of its mid-season assessment, which will focus only on federal spending, enacted legislation and other matters.
The Washington Post first reported the decision to skip the economic prediction part of the mid-year budget update, citing two sources who said the Covid-19 outbreak has made it too difficult to model economic trends.
Administrations typically publish the forecasts as part of mid-season reviews in July or August. That would be, if the country continues to open, when some political experts say the presidential campaign would be revving up.
Bleak forecasts for the remainder of the year could hurt Donald Trump and give a boost to former Vice President Joe Biden, who is leading Mr Trump in national polls and in most key battleground states.
Some former officials told The Post they could not recall any administration simply leaving the projections out of the mid-year assessment.
"It gets them off the hook for having to say what the economic outlook looks like," Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who also advised Senator John McCain, the late Arizona Republican.
