THE REF SHOULD HAVE STOPPED THAT ONE:

Piece by piece [fiscal conservative Mark Sanford of South Carolina] dismantled the stated and unstated assumptions underlying the Trump budget.

He noted that the average economic expansion is 58 months, and the U.S. economy currently is in its 94th month. The budget, he said, presumes it will continue for another 214 months.

"What you presume ... is not only that we won't have a recession, but [the expansion is] going to keep going for another 214 months. It's not only unprecedented. I would think that to be unreasonable."

Sanford continued. "Can you guess the last time we had an unemployment rate at 4.8%, growth at 3% and inflation held at 2%? It's never happened."

Ditto when it comes to 3% sustained growth with the 10-year bond yield consistently below 5%, as the Trump budget assumes.

Key ingredients driving growth also would have to way outperform to meet Trump's 3% growth goal.

Capital formation would have to meet levels not seen since the late 1960s and early 1970s, said Sanford, who then noted that capital formation tends to go down as people retire because they begin to withdraw their savings. And there's a swell of retirees coming down the pike as Baby Boomers retire.

How about labor growth? It would have to meet levels not seen since the 1970s, when women started entering the workforce en masse, he said. To get there would require a radical change in immigration policy or a radical change in demographics.

Productivity growth, Sanford noted, would have to match that not seen since the late 1950s and 1960s, when there was a mass adoption of labor-saving appliances like dishwashers and completion of the national highway system.

"The bible says you can't build a house on a sandy foundation. It perpetuates a myth that we can balance the budget without touching entitlements," Sanford said. "It's not only a myth. It's frankly a lie."

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