President Donald Trump has nominated Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni to be the next head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Trump made the announcement Monday. If Antoni is confirmed, a a strong America First economist would be in charge of BLS, unlike his recently fired predecessor Erika McEntarfer, whom Trump removed under accusations of manipulating data.
As usual, Trump posted his announcement on Truth Social, including a photo of Antoni and himself in the Oval Office. “I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Highly Respected Economist, Dr. E.J. Antoni, as the next Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” the president began.
He boasted, “Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE. I know E.J. Antoni will do an incredible job in this new role. Congratulations E.J.!”
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Antoni has been among the few high-profile economists analyzing the economic data without a bias against the Trump administration and all of its policies. In a recent appearance on “The Bottom Line” on Fox Business, Antoni discussed the importance of Trump administration deregulation. “I think it's really even starting to show up in the macro level data. This whole-of-government approach that the current Trump administration is taking to deregulation is seriously paying dividends,” he said.
He continued, “In fact, that may end up having an even bigger positive impact than the tax bill, and that's saying something. Sure enough, that's what happened during the first Trump administration, both for small businesses and large businesses. They near universally said that the deregulation under the first Trump admin actually did even more to help them than the tax cuts and jobs act from the end of 2017.”
This track record and data, Antoni said, put “into perspective, I think, how powerful both over regulation was during the Biden administration to crush business and consumers, and now how powerful deregulation is to take those burdens off of Americans.”
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Antoni has also been aggressively challenging the poor decision making of Jerome Powell’s Federal Reserve. “It's not just that the Fed is paying over $450 million in interest a day to financial institutions, but that over three-quarters of RRPs are foreign accounts - where's the outrage? The Fed is NOT America First!” Antoni posted last week.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts celebrated Antoni’s nomination. “Having worked with @RealEJAntoni at both [Texas Public Policy Foundation] and @Heritage — I can confirm that he will be the absolute best. @POTUS continues to make superb personnel and policy decisions on behalf of the American people.”
If confirmed, Antoni will be replacing McEntarfer, who oversaw many months of controversial jobs data under the Biden administration, where initial job numbers were always revised down afterwards. Trump accused McEntarfer of releasing weak job numbers to make him look bad.
Antoni now faces a Senate confirmation process.
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