[dude1394]

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...FmYTNlOThjNDU=

Here is what the data says about the current expansion:

Gross Domestic Product: Real GDP contracted in the third quarter of 2000 and again in first and third quarters of 2001. Since then, real GDP has expanded 19 consecutive quarters. Real GDP in the third quarter of 2003 expanded 7.5 percent, a rate similar to the one realized in the fourth quarter of 1999 (7.3 percent), which was the highest quarterly growth rate in the 1991-2001 period.

Industrial Production: Industrial production measures the output of the nation’s factories, mines, and utilities. Production peaked in June 2000 and hit bottom in November 2001. It has expanded for 39 months in this expansion, a 16.1 percent increase.

Nonfarm payroll employment: Employment peaked in February 2001, reached its trough in August 2003, and has expanded by 5.7 million new jobs since that date.

Here’s one other fact you won’t hear the bears cite:

Next month, the expansion becomes the fourth longest of the postwar era, trailing only the expansions of March 1991 to March 2001 (120 months), February 1961 to December 1969 (106 months), and November 1982 to July 1990 (92 months).

The ability of lower taxation and reasoned monetary stimulus to bolster the U.S. economy should never be underestimated. But it’s difficult to see the blue skies when hiding beneath the dark clouds of pessimism. The Wall Street bears should know better, but the partisan bears will never learn.

And one big SCOREBOARD.