Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested that government spending might be excluded from GDP reports, potentially altering economic measurements.

The Prediction in Context

Source: apnews.com

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday that government spending could be separated from gross domestic product reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the U.S. economy’s health.