A few points:

1) While nobody should hang too much on one quarterly number, especially as these numbers are often revised substantially, the story this statistic is telling us about the economy is consistent with every other trend we’ve been seeing.

2) The initial report of 4.1 percent quarterly growth is good news for Republicans, who are crowing the way the party in power always does when it gets a good economic statistic. It’s the best reading we’ve had since 2014.


3) But the party in power back then, the Democrats, did very badly in the congressional elections that year, losing control of the Senate, which is a reminder that the economy isn’t everything.

4) Subscribers can read an article about the strength of the economy — and how much credit Republican policies should get for it — that Michael Strain and I wrote for our new issue. We wrote it before today’s number came out, but aware of the expectation that it would be a good one.