Biden Administration Is Changing The Rules So It Can Spin Economic Data SoonerJohn Carney 14 Feb 2024
The Biden White House is scrapping a decades-old rule that bars administration officials from commenting on economic data for one hour after their release, a notice in the Federal Register indicated Wednesday.
Faced with polls showing that the public strongly disapproves of President Joe Biden’s management of economic issues, the White House is changing the rules to give them a new advantage when it comes to spinning economic data in a more favorable light.
Instead of the one-hour waiting period that has been in place since the Reagan years, administration officials will be able to weigh in on important economic releases after just half an hour.
The White House has early access to economic data such as the monthly jobs report from the Department of Labor, giving officials time to prepare a public response. The one-hour delay was intended to prevent administration officials with advance notice from coloring the market response by immediately putting their spin on it.
The idea was that the delay would allow markets and the public to more easily distinguish between the official, apolitical data and the interpretations of political officials.
“Except for members of the staff of the agency issuing the principal economic indicator who have been designated by the agency head to provide technical explanations of the data, employees of the executive branch shall not comment publicly on the data until at least one hour after the official release time,” the existing regulation stated
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https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2024/02/14/biden-administration-is-changing-the-rules-so-it-can-spin-economic-data-sooner/
