There goes — maybe — another argument that Donald J. Trump used so effectively to be elected president of the United States.
He griped for months that the U.S. economy was growing at an anemic pace. We had to do better and, by golly, he was going to bring jobs back; he is going to return those jobs that had fled to China and Mexico.
Then the U.S. Commerce Department shoots a hole in that argument. It said today the U.S. economy grew at a fairly robust 3.5 percent annual growth rate in the third quarter of 2016.
Hmmm. Interesting, if you ask me.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average has tripled in value during the Obama administration; joblessness has been cut in half; we’ve had 81 consecutive months of non-farm job growth; the annual federal budget deficit has been cut by two-thirds.
OK, it won’t mean the entire year that’s about to pass into history has been pulled out of the economic ditch. The first half of 2016 produced pretty slim growth.
But the third quarter is demonstrating the distinct possibility that the economy is in better shape than Trump and his legions of doom had been saying.
Might the president-elect and his team been spouting just more campaign rhetoric?