The Bush Boom Rolls On
Kevin Hassett says the Bush Boom is on:

One of the striking regularities in the economic data is the recurrent propensity of incumbents to do very well in elections when the economy is doing well. As Yale economist Ray Fair and a number of others have found, there is a strong and statistically significant relationship between economic data and electoral outcomes. The evidence suggests that voters give Presidents in particular a great deal of credit or blame for the state of the economy.

If that pattern continues, President Bush will be a very happy man next year. This week's final GDP report for the third quarter indicated that GDP growth was indeed as fast as preliminary estimates suggested, with blockbuster growth in consumer and business spending driving growth above 8 percent. A number of details below the top line suggest that the economy's momentum will sustain itself in the fourth quarter and into next year.

Hassett says Bush's tax policy has added about 1 percent to GDP growth over the last two years. Given that - until the 8.2 percent growth in the third quarter - the post-Clinton-recession economy was struggling to generate any meaningful GDP growth, that's significant.