Today In History: AIPAC Apologizes For Trump's Speech; Obama's Lead Economist Predicts End Of Recession

March 22, 2017, is the 80th day of the year, with 284 days remaining. The moon is in a waning gibbous phase, with illumination at 33 percent.

Obama’s Lead Economist Predicts Nation’s Economic Growth

President Obama’s lead economist, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Christina Romer, in 2009 predicted that the country’s recessionary economy would be growing by the end of the year. She defended the administration’s economic policies in the face of growing criticisms from Republicans, chiefly with regard to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s handling of more than $165 million in bonuses to American International Group (AIG) employees as well as regarding Geithner’s delay in publicizing the specifications of his plan to stabilize some of the nation’s largest banks.

Romer said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” “I have every expectation, as do private forecasters, that we will bottom out this year.”

“I think it is important to realize this is just one piece of what we’re doing,” Romer remarked on the AIG controversy, further stating that she didn’t think “Wall Street [would be] expecting the silver bullet … there’ll be more to come.”

The outcome? The New York Times’ economy-focused blog, Economix, reported in 2010 that the American recession — defined as a period of falling economic activity spread across the economy and lasting more than a few months, visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production and wholesale-retail sales — had officially ended in June 2009, as originally determined by the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research. According to the the committee, a trough in business activity occurred three months after Romer’s announcement, and this trough marked both the end of the declining phase of the business cycle and the start of the rising phase. The committee further decided that any future downturn of the economy would be a new recession and not a continuation of the recession that began in December 2007.

AIPAC Apologizes For Trump’s Remarks During Speech

Donald Trump attended the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference on March 21, 2016. His speech, predominantly recited from a teleprompter, was notable for its comparatively subdued nature and careful preparation. Veering off script, Trump at one point remarked on the end of Obama’s presidency.

“With President Obama in his final year. Yay!” he said, earning mass applause. He later again diverted from the teleprompter text, referring to Obama as “maybe the worst thing to happen to Israel.”

AIPAC President Lillian Pinkus stated with regard to Trump’s comments that, “While [AIPAC] may have policy differences, we deeply respect the office of president of the United States and our president, Barack Obama.”

“There were people in our AIPAC family who were deeply hurt last night [during the conference], and for that, we are deeply sorry,” Pinkus apologized on behalf of the committee. “We are disappointed that so many people applauded the sentiment that we neither agree with or condone. Let us close this conference in recognition that, when we say ‘come together,’ we still have a lot to learn from each other, and we still have much work to do.”

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Photo credit: Pete Souza via the White House (2009)