Consumer Spending Boosts 4th-Quarter Growth

A consumer spending spree helped produce the best economic growth in five years during the final quarter of 1992, the government said Friday.

But consumer confidence has slipped a bit since then, and analysts said economic growth, while continuing, was unlikely to repeat the robust performance anytime soon.

The gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services produced in the United States, advanced at a 4.8% annual rate in the October-December quarter, the Commerce Department said in a revised report.

That was substantially better than the department’s initial estimate a month ago of 3.8%.

Ironically, the fastest growth since the fourth quarter of 1987 came at the same time that voters upset with the economy rejected George Bush’s bid for a second term in the White House.

Friday’s report prompted Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas and some economists to say President Clinton’s proposed stimulus package no longer was needed.

“The Bush recovery is well under way,” Dole said in a statement from Annapolis, Md., where Senate Republicans were conducting a retreat on health care.

“The last thing we need to do now is threaten the ongoing recovery by adding billions of dollars to the deficit with a so-called economic stimulus package, which is really nothing more than a political stimulus package,” Dole said.