WASHINGTON —U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, and U.S. Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, today issued a joint statement regarding newly released Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimates from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which revealed economic output in the United States grew at an annual rate of 1.2 percent for the first estimate of real GDP growth for the second quarter of 2016:

“We’re disappointed to see that our economy is averaging only one percent growth so far this year. These results show that the Democrats’ policies of overspending, overtaxing and overregulating are simply not working. To reverse this trend, Senate Republicans will continue to pursue pro-growth legislation that reduces our debt, modernizes our tax code and removes unnecessary regulations. Painfully slow economic growth cannot become our new normal.”

Real GDP grew at an annual rate of 1.2 percent during the second quarter of 2016. The estimate of first quarter economic growth was revised to 0.8 percent. In a typical post-1960 recovery, GDP growth averaged 3.7 percent compared to the Obama recovery’s average of 2.1 percent growth.