On cue, it dazzles and shines:
The economy logged a solid 3.8 percent growth rate in the first quarter of 2005, a performance that was better than previously thought and a fresh sign the expansion is on firm footing.
Nearly two months ago, the Commerce Department's initial reading of a 3.1% advance in the Gross Domestic Product gave some leftward quarters cause for gloomy headlines but not much else — perhaps because it was signally reminiscent of last year's fourth quarter analysis, beginning with a slower-than-average 3.1% and concluding with a twenty-percent positive adjustment to 3.8%. Two weeks later the government revised the first quarter figure to 3.5%, normal growth. Today's report preserves the boom following President Bush's Jobs & Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 — a bullish market producing seven quarters averaging 15% over normal growth, over three million non-farm payroll jobs, an unemployment rate below the thirty-year average, a stock market rivaling record highs and the fastest tax receipt increase since 1981.
With assets saved and earned, why not repay the left's opposition to the president's productive economic policy by ordering the Cato Institute's booklet on Social Security reform, It's Your Money?