Earlier this month, President Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), after the July report showed just 73,000 new jobs added and downward revisions in May and June. In July, he pressured the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, even suggesting the removal of Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
These moves may seem like strong leadership to some, but they’re part of a troubling pattern: turning neutral institutions into political targets. The more that happens, the harder it becomes for Americans to trust the systems that we rely on every day.
The U.S. economy does not run purely on numbers. It also runs on credibility. And that credibility is built through independence and transparency. If experts are being punished for reporting inconvenient truths or resisting policies that serve purely political goals,…
