We’ve often argued that a misleading flaw of the concept of gross domestic product (GDP) is that it includes government consumption expenditures in the calculation. We could never understand why.  More government – especially when the federal government is losing $2 trillion a year – is a negative, not a positive for the economy.

This brings us to the latest 2.8% reading of GDP for the quarter just ended. It was a solid number with GDP up 2.8%. Investment was up more than 7% – which is great news. BUT, once again our economic numbers cruncher, EJ Antoni, finds that government consumption outpaced private consumer spending.

Why don’t we at least start this journey back to fiscal sanity with a freeze on federal spending for three or four years?