So first quarter GDP growth was 2.3%. Which is decent. I’m perfectly happy with the number:
In Obama’s eight years he had three first quarters better than that, and five worse. So take that however you want. I am still waiting for this promised growth of sustained 3-4% growth. Which by the way is never going to happen.
a nice solid number.
Allan
Could be worse, UK just hit 0.1% GD growth. France 0.3%.
Obama did fairly well at slow and steady growth, the idea that Trump could rocket boost that growth with tax cuts for the rich was always nonsense.
You’re going to have a massive hole in the deficit now though.
Weren’t the most historic tax cuts ever dependent on 4% GDP growth?
Paying for them required significantly higher than 4% growth iirc.
what happened to trumps 3-4% growth. i guess thats just another in a long list of his lies…
his first years GDP growth was no better than average and so is this.
Liberal obstruction and negativity is holding back higher growth. Obama dug a deeper hole than we imagined. Also: those numbers might be fake. Growth could already be at 4% or even 5%. Who can really say?
Yay, I was spot on [1]!
Nice and steady as she goes. Surely we’ll see some criticism for a lack of three quarters without 3+% growth. You know, for consistency and nonpartisan criticism, right?
I flagged this post so the mods can rule on “excessive celebration”.
I correctly picked 2.3% from that thread in post #24.
1980 $2.863 $6.450 -0.2% Recession.
1981 $3.211 $6.618 2.6% Reagan tax cut.
1982 $3.345 $6.491 -1.9% Recession ended.
1983 $3.638 $6.792 4.6% Tax hike and defense spending.
1984 $4.041 $7.285 7.3%
Nice work!
I failed. I predicted 2.1%. 
The way it was scored said that $1.5 trillion in tax cuts would be offset by $400 billion in increased economic activity of 3% GDP growth. But Mnuchin and the others were smugly predicting at least 4+% GDP growth, which is completely bonkers.
And? Tell us what this means.
I’ll give you a hint. What was population growth in those years?
And the increase in government expenditures.
There’s really only 2 things you need to know to predict GDP growth, and they’re also the limiting factors, and it works looking backwards as well. Population growth plus productivity growth = %increase in GDP. That’s how economists do it.
Population growth is easy to predict, it’s pretty slow at 0.9%. Productivity growth is harder to predict but employment is pretty high already and I don’t see any evidence of a ton of people re-entering the workforce.
If the economy can sustain low to middling 2% GDP growth then thats doing as well as it can.
Now, you CAN goose those numbers up temporarily with massive deficit spending like we’re doing now, but it will always revert back to what it should have been when the deficit spending stops, and after a correction going the opposite direction. It won’t be so great when the music stops.
Post a graph of our national debt during the 80s. It’s when it really exploded.
When, EXACTLY, in the next 2 1/2 years of Trump prez will we see 4% quarterly growth?
Lets hope. Unless you’re one of those libs that want to see our economy crash so you can regain power again.
