One can hope that government spending was lower than a year ago.
DB2,
Nominally you are correct. Year in and year out if that is your only position lets fork things over to China with slow US GDP growth.
It is a dynamic based on taxing the wealthy and using the money to grow the US economy. Others will cry this is for welfare. Yes their own bloody welfare not that of the poor. Targeted welfare is not the goal. US GDP growth is the goal. The bill that was rejected by Manchin was on the larger side but three quarters of it even Manchin wanted because of the growth it would bring the US economy over the next ten years.
The numbers during the pandemic fiscal and monetary are not useful in discussing normalizing the US economy.