Pathetic: 1Q GDP growth is a sad 0.2 percent

We told you yesterday that forecasts were not good for the coming report on first-quarter GDP growth, although we held out the possibility that the report could be better than the doomsayers were suggesting.

It wasn't. It was worse. A lot worse:

The overall economy grew at a barely discernible annual rate of 0.2 percent in the January-March quarter, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. That is the poorest showing in a year and down from 2.2 percent growth in the fourth quarter. Plummeting exports pulled growth down by nearly a full percentage point. The category that includes investments in oil and gas exploration drilling plunged 48.7 percent. Consumer spending slowed sharply as a severe winter kept shoppers home. The tiny increase was much worse than economists had expected, but analysts are still looking for a solid rebound for the rest of the year.

Understand that 2.2 percent is nothing great. We could see an explosion of job creation and put a serious dent in the national debt if we could achieve consistent growth of 4.0 percent or better. But the norm during Obama's presidency has been 2 percent or less, and every time it seems like we're getting somewhere, we hit a thud like the one announced this morning. Why can't we grow consistently? Why can't we drive people back into the workforce instead of driving them out of it? Why all these fits and stops? If I had to point to one element of Obama's economic program that can be held most responsible for it, it would be taxes. People don't realize just how many tax increases we've seen during the Obama years, largely because so many of them were hidden in ObamaCare. The medical device tax is one you've heard about, but did you know the captial gains tax has been raised too? That's a huge drag on growth because it serves as a disincentive to people to realize the gains from their investments. Did you know Obama raised the income tax for people making over $200,000 a year? They figure most people don't care because they don't make that much, and maybe you don't care for that very reason. But the people who create jobs make that much, and the money that might have been used to hire you went to pay that tax increase instead. These are the policies that lead to 0.2 percent growth rates, and we didn't even get into how they've tipped the scales in favor of unions, or the new regulations they've imposed, or their refusal to seriously look at replacing the tax code. There is a huge opportunity in this country to unleash growth by adopting growth-friendly policies, but the Obama Administration is not interested in any of that. At least we need to make the electorate understand this so they don't make the same mistake the next time.

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