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You Do the Math
The political spinning began moments after the Commerce Department announced this morning that the U.S. economy grew at the slowest pace in three years — an annual rate of 1.6 percent — in the third quarter.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, said “the numbers show that the economy is slowing to an even greater extent than had been widely expected,” and fretted over the “particularly troubling” problem of wage stagnation.
“If the Democrats win control of the House of Representatives in November, dealing with the wage problem will be high on our agenda,” he promised.
But House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri, stubbornly stuck to the GOP story that the economy is booming. “The economic numbers prove we are experiencing strong, steady economic growth,” he said in a statement released just before the stock market opened and began tumbling. “The Dow is at a record high, unemployment is at a record low, home ownership and consumer confidence are up, and gas prices are down.”
He warned that Democratic control of Congress would “dampen this robust recovery.”
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