The three leading stock market indexes roared to record highs after investors heard the president's speech to Congress, with the Dow leaping above the 21,000 mark.
Wall Street may approve, but whether this enthusiasm spreads to Main Street is an open question.
As a candidate, and again in his speech to Congress Tuesday evening, the president repeated his promises to reduce regulations, reform the tax code and eliminate waste in government spending, all while boosting revenue as the American economy accelerates.
Total output has been pegged at 1.9 percent, and the president has suggested that under his leadership, the Gross Domestic Product growth rate could go to as high as 3 percent.
But in an interview with the BBC, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan, was asked, "Can he do it?" After a short pause, Greenspan's answer was a simple, unamplifed, "No."
Meanwhile, the Fed is likely to boost interest rates at its upcoming meeting to make sure the economy does not grow too quickly, which would be a problem.
Or, as Greenspan himself has said, the Fed's job is to "take away the punch just as the party is getting started."
That, however, has not curbed the enthusiasm of investors, as they pushed market indexes to record highs.
All these developments have prompted resident cynics to point out that the Dow average is not so much an economic barometer predicting the future as it is a temperature gauge of "irrational exuberance," to borrow another Greenspan phrase.
After looking at a list of top-level presidential appointments, the cynic in chief noted that "instead of draining the swamp, he has added more alligators."
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