Trump White House economists COVID-19 projection clear partisan bias - Business Insider

It was the wrong approach to understanding the data and has no basis in the underlying epidemiological issues.Many observers thought that the curve was there because it was placed by Hassett to give the impression that COVID-19 is on its way out.Jason Furman, a CEA chair in the Obama administration, reacted strongly on Twitter."The stakes on the epidemiological questions are so high that this utterly superficial and misleading 'modeling' has no place whatsoever in any discussion of the government's response," Furman said.A firestorm of recrimination emerged as Tomas Philipson, the current acting CEA chair, accused Furman of being the only chair without peer-reviewed scientific work, a painful, if true, schoolyard taunt for academic economists.All concerned would have been well advised in these difficult times to take Hassett's own advice in his When the President Calls interview to not be "…so confident that your model is so perfect that you disregard criticism and disregard data…In other words, as well as preparing for being right, you should also be preparing for being wrong—because you don't have a monopoly on the model of how the world works."The CEA was established to bring rigorous policy analysis right into the White House.