Never discount the ability for the current US admin to make a bad situation like a 40% reduction, into a disaster. Their response to crisis seems to be to make it bigger.
It does when you are the person responsible for X happening. He's a member of the active government saying that something that happened in large part because of the administration he himself is part of actions he gets to execute Y policies.
We're a couple cycles of failed or made to fail leftist responses to this kind of economic crisis before anything not stinking of socialism is considered.