With a higher rate of economic growth, we could ….

This economy sure isn't growing. The release this week of the size-of-the-economy measurement, "GDP," made it plain. So far in 2016, growth is all of half a percent—at an annual rate. This follows on the sub-2 percent trend of the previous quarters, and fully a decade now of yearly sub-3 percent growth, the first time that has ever happened in American history.

Negligible economic growth—bringing with it the masses of dropouts from the labor force, students drifting through universities on loans, and stagnating family incomes—typically calls forth urgent appeals for the trend to be reversed. Not this time. The Democrats are content to identify inequality as opposed to growth as the top issue, while Republicans have a weakness for blaming immigrants and foreigners, as if the relevant matter were reducing the number of people dividing up the pie, as opposed to increasing its size.