Commerce Department Makes it Official: The Economy Sucks

I’m not sure just how many times back in ’09 I said Obamanomics would fail, but that doesn’t make it any less miserable to report on the misery. See the latest:

The U.S. economy came perilously close to flat-lining in the first quarter and grew at a meager 1.3 percent annual rate in the April-June period as consumer spending barely rose.

The Commerce Department data on Friday also showed the current lull in the economy began earlier than had been thought, with the growth losing steam late last year. [Emphasis added]

That’s right — the economy slowed down before the Japan earthquake disrupted so many supply chains, and before gas prices shot up. Reuters won’t spell that out for you, but they all-but-admit-it in the next graf:

That could raise questions on the long held view by both Federal Reserve officials and independent economists that the slowdown in growth as the year started was largely the result of transitory factors.

Obamacare is not a “transitory factor.” Neither is $14.4 trillion in debt. Demonizing business, using the tax code to discourage entrepreneurship, strangling domestic energy production, regulatory bloat, an anti-industrial EPA, using extra-legal means to prop up spiteful unions — these might be transitory factors, but they’re as good as permanent until we get a new President.

And the results are painful to see:

Growth in gross domestic product — a measure of all goods and services produced within U.S. borders – rose at a 1.3 percent annual rate. First-quarter output was sharply revised down to a 0.4 percent pace from a 1.9 percent increase.

Economists had expected the economy to expand at a 1.8 percent rate in the second quarter. Fourth-quarter growth was revised to a 2.3 percent rate from 3.1 percent.

Jobless claims and unemployment figures — those get revised up every few weeks. The economy as a whole? Down, down, down.

What amazes me, however, is there’s still enough of that American can-do spirit to keep this economy chugging along even a little bit. But the fact that we still have some small, tiny, modest, meager growth is due to no lack of trying by this rotten and clueless Administration.