The most important issue for the United States economy in 2017 and beyond is whether it’s near its speed limit.
It has taken eight years of glacial expansion, but the nation is closing in on what economists believe to be its full productive capacity. It’s nearing that level of activity in which nearly everybody who wants a job has one, and factories and offices are cranking at full speed.
If the economy grows just 2.5 percent this year, gross domestic product will reach the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of the nation’s economic potential by the end of the year.
