Free Republic

Americans should get used to a “new normal” of slow economic growth, business economists say. The median estimate from economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics calls for the American economy to grow 2.2 percent in 2017, up from a forecast 1.6 percent this year and unchanged from the previous survey in September. The improved number is still lackluster by historical standards. U.S. economic growth averaged 3.1 percent a year from 1948 to 2015, according to the Congressional Research Service. But the business economists say Americans need to get used to slow growth: 80 percent of those surveyed...

In 1967, five years after California became the most populous state, novelist Wallace Stegner said that California - energetic, innovative, hedonistic - was America, "only more so." Today, this state's budget crisis is like the nation's, only more so. Bob Dutton is an island of calm in the eye of the storm - which should agitate Gov. Jerry Brown. Dutton came to California from Nebraska at age 19 in 1969 and now is the leader of Republicans in the state Senate. He contentedly says that his caucus is "almost like a Chamber of Commerce board of directors." Its members are...

RICHMOND, Jan. 17 -- Developers on Tuesday launched a rapid-response campaign to undermine Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) just hours after Virginia's new chief executive called for broader controls on growth to reduce traffic. Members of a suit-and-tie posse gathered in the morning a few blocks from the Capitol, ate doughnuts, sipped coffee and were deputized as lobbyists for a day in what developers see as a must-win battle with Kaine over his proposals to let localities deny rezonings if roads are inadequate. "We've already learned that we can have a handshake and be smiled at and have exactly the...