The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) lauded the Trump administration Tuesday for organizing its agencies to deliver coronavirus aid "incredibly quickly," which helped the country withstand the most devastating economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
CBO director Phillip L. Swagel said Capitol Hill moved fast to approve its stimulus bill, while the Treasury Department and the Small Business Administration acted "quickly and effectively" to get stimulus payments to people and organizations in need.
The CBO is a non-partisan watchdog group widely considered to be the Congress' scorekeeper.
Swagel worked in the administration during the 2008 financial meltdown when Congress green-lit several rounds of stimulus bills. That money was also distributed quickly, but this year's payment went out even faster.
"The IRS and those other agencies deserve a lot of credit," Swagel said in a virtual forum hosted by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
The stellar report from the CBO might conflict with other news filled with complaints agencies were overwhelmed with requests and from Democrats in Congress who claimed the Treasury Department delayed sending out payments.
The CBO this week pointed to the large increase in the 2020 federal budget deficit, stemming from a mix of heavy spending and not enough tax revenue.
Swagel said, while the deficit is not a long-term budget worry, due in part to low-interest rates, that might change if the rates begin to balloon.
"The fiscal steps taken so far have not greatly increased the burden on the Treasury of funding our debt," Swagel said.
Since the economic crash in 2008, he said the U.S. economy has climbed steadily until its momentum got undercut by the virus.
People in the lower-income brackets, in particular, saw their wages rising "reasonably strongly" until a few months ago when the job market took a tumble.
Now, Swagel said, "tremendous uncertainty" about how coronavirus will affect the country in upcoming months could lead to an unpredictable economic future.
"That was a success, that the bottom of the distribution was feeling gains," Swagal said. "The question is, will it take another decade of upswing" to get back to that sort of growth.
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