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Groton Daily Independent
Saturday, July 29, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 029 ~ 44 of 67
that we couldn’t save you,” his parents wrote when they announced their decision. “We had the chance but we weren’t allowed to give you that chance.
“Sweet dreams baby. Sleep tight, our beautiful little boy.”
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Associated Press Writer Leonore Schick contributed to this story
US economy expanded at stronger 2.6 percent rate in Q2 By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy revved up this spring after a weak start to the year, fueled by a surge in consumer spending. But the growth spurt still fell short of the op- timistic goals President Donald Trump hopes to achieve through tax cuts and regulatory relief.
The Commerce Department said Friday that growth in the gross do- mestic product, the economy’s total output of goods and services, ex- panded at a 2.6 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter. That’s more than double the revised 1.2 percent pace in the rst quarter.
The improvement was powered in large part by robust consumer ap- petite for items such as clothing and furniture.
In this July 12, 2017, photo, construction workers build a residential complex in Nashville, Tenn. On Friday, July 28, The2.6percentGDPgaincamein 2017,theCommerceDepartmentissuesaneconomicreport
close to economists’ expectations. on how the U.S. economy is performing. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey) “Consumers continue to drive the
economy’s growth, but rmer busi-
ness investment is also a plus,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “Weaker housing construction was the only signi cant drag on growth in the quarter.”
Trump campaigned on a pledge to boost growth to rates of 4 percent or better. So far, his economic program has not advanced in Congress. But on Friday he still hailed the latest acceleration in growth.
“GDP is up double from what it was in the rst quarter — 2.6 percent,” Trump told a crowd in New York. “We’re doing well. We’re doing really well. And we took off all those restrictions.”
Trump told the crowd that he was proud that he had appointed wealthy people to his Cabinet including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
“I want a rich guy at the head of Treasury. I want a rich guy at the head of Commerce,” Trump told the audience on Long Island. “We’ve been screwed so badly on trade deals. I want people that made a lot of money now to make a lot of money for our country.”
Trump in May put forward a budget for next year that projects growth to steadily advance in the coming years, hitting a sustained pace of 3 percent annually by 2021. The Congressional Budget Of ce and most private economists are less optimistic, believing growth rates have the potential of improving only slightly from the lackluster rates seen in the current recovery, the weakest in the post-World War II period.
Also on Friday, the department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis issued an annual benchmark revision of its data going back three years. The revision slightly boosted growth over the past three years, enough