Fox’s Legendary Hypocrisy Is On Full Display With Today’s Underwhelming GDP Report

The slowdown in the pace of GDP growth came as consumer spending rose by just 0.3% in the first quarter after surging up by 3.5% in the fourth quarter. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady argues the report doesn’t reflect poorly on the administration but rather shows how important it is those policies get implemented.

The economy grew at a 2.1 percent pace in the fourth quarter.

The growth was the weakest quarterly performance since the first quarter of 2014. Economic output grew 1.9% in the first quarter compared to the same period a year earlier.

“The health of business investment bolsters our confidence that the first quarter is a temporary slowing”, Barclays economists said in a research note.

“Trump’s economics team needs to step up their game as the economy is starting out the year in a hole”, he said.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin unveiled President Trump’s tax blueprint, which aims to cut the business tax rate from 35% to 15%. And most economists are forecasting growth for the entire year to be around 2.2 percent.

Though only slightly below the 0.8pc increase in the same quarter of past year, the result was down sharply from the 2.1pc expansion seen in the fourth quarter of 2016. Economists were largely expecting a weak growth figure, calling it a blip and not a sign of stagnation.

But it remained unclear how many recent economic events could be credited to – or blamed on – the president. This puts it on a path to meet the Fed’s expectations for 2.1% expansion this year. But for the full year of 2016, it grew by only 1.6 percent.

The Commerce Department released estimates Friday showing that the economy is growing more slowly than it has in years. First-quarter GDP tends to underperform because of difficulties with the calculation of data that the government has acknowledged and is working to rectify.

Spending on nonresidential structures accelerated by 22.1 percent in the first quarter after declining by 1.9 percent in the previous quarter.

Inventories negatively contributed 0.9 percentage points from growth after adding 1 percent in the prior quarter.

Spending could be restrained further if the Federal Reserve continues with its plan to hike interest rates two more times this year, after already raising rates at its March meeting.

Investments increased at 4.3% as against 9.4% in the last quarter. This category had seen sharp cutbacks in recent quarters, reflecting reductions in exploration and drilling as energy prices declined. Durable goods spending declined 2.5 percent in this report, pulled lower by a 4.5 percent decrease in motor vehicles and parts.

Trump noted the weak 2016 GDP performance in a tweet Wednesday and contended that “trade deficits hurt the economy very badly”. Trade was likely neutral after being a huge drag in the fourth quarter.

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