Cord Byrd: “the Commerce Department reported last week, July 27, that the U.S. economy grew at an anemic 0.7 percent rate in the…”

“the Commerce Department reported last week, July 27, that the U.S. economy grew at an anemic 0.7 percent rate in the second quarter of this year, April 1-June 30. This is the slowest growth rate in 8 years, and considerably lower than the 8.3 percent growth rate seen just 18 months ago. ``If you applied logic to the [economic] news these days,'' wrote Allan Sloan in the Washington Post on Tuesday, July 31, ``the logical conclusion would be that the economy has fallen off a cliff and is about to splatter all over the canyon floor and take us with it.'' This week, July 30, the Wall Street Journal reported, ``the economy has been pushed to the edge of a recession by a breathtaking decline in business investment.'' In the second quarter, nonresidential investment tumbled at a 13.6 percent rate. Consumer spending, along with robust state and local government spending, is the only thing that prevented the economy from shrinking over the last three months. In an effort to stem the tide, the Federal Reserve has dramatically cut short-term interest rates by almost 3 percentage points over the last 7 months. These are the most aggressive rate reductions since the 1982 recession under President Reagan.”