CBO: GDP for 2018 will be highest in 15 years

The CBO projected that the GDP for 2018 will be the highest in 15 years.

CNS:

The Congressional Budget Office’s budget and economic outlook released this month projects that real Gross Domestic Product will grow by 3.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018.

That would mark a 15-year high.

“In CBO’s projections, real GDP expands by 3.3 percent this year and by 2.4 percent in 2019,” says the CBO report. “It grew by 2.6 percent last year.”

The last time real GDP grew by more than 3.3 percent from the fourth quarter of one year to the fourth quarter of the next was in 2003, when it grew by 4.4 percent, according to the historical data published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

“In our economic projections which underlie our budget projections, inflation-adjusted GDP–or real GDP–expands by 3.3 percent this year, and by 2.4 percent in 2019,” CBO Director Keith Hall told the House Budget Committee in testimony on April 12.

2017 fell short of President Trump’s goal for GDP. This was due to a mix of rising trade deficits and anemic first-quarter growth left over from the Obama Administration.