THE PRESIDENT WENT TO IRAQ AND ALL I GOT WAS 7% GROWTH:

Are Happy Days Back for the Economy? Bush Hopes So (FLOYD NORRIS, October 31, 2003, NY Times)

Profits are soaring, the economy is expanding at its fastest rate in nearly two decades and there are signs that businesses are finally beginning to hire.

All that is in sharp contrast to the outlook just last winter. In February, share prices were falling, the economy was stumbling along at a growth rate of 1.4 percent and the talk among many seers was of the failure of cuts in taxes and interest rates to rescue the economy. Some feared the possibility of Japan-style deflation. [...]

The gross domestic product report showed that over the last six months, final sales to domestic purchasers rose at a 5.9 percent annual rate, well above the pace of late 1999, when growth was peaking.

Businesses were broadly unprepared for the recovery. The government guesses that inventories fell during the quarter, but there is a good chance that it is underestimating the decline. If so, the third-quarter growth rate will be revised down, but the needed inventory restocking will lift fourth-quarter growth.

This would be a good time for the media of the Right to begin pushing the term Bushonomics.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 31, 2003 9:03 AM