The Most Important Number of the Week Is 3.66%

Senator Joe Manchin jolted the Democrats this week by writing an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal demanding a “strategic pause” on President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion economic agenda. The West Virginia Democrat, who is a key vote in the evenly divided Senate, cited “an overheating economy” that warranted a go-slow approach. Has Manchin even seen the economic data lately?

Regardless of whether you think the economy demands more fiscal stimulus, it would be a stretch to say it is overheating. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s widely followed GDPNow index, which aims to track the economy in real time, has fallen off a cliff amid a string of disappointing data, dropping to 3.66% from around 10% a couple of months ago. The team at Morgan Stanley led by chief U.S. economist Ellen Zentner just slashed its forecast for gross domestic product growth this quarter to 2.9% from 6.5%.