Kevin Hassett was right about growth in 2018. Larry Summers wasn’t.

See Thank You, Tax Reform. WSJ editorial. Excerpts:

"The best news was business investment, which contributed 0.69-percentage points to GDP growth. This is even better than it looks because housing subtracted 0.14. Housing has now been flat or worse for most of the last two years, but that may be a silver lining.

This means the expansion isn’t marked now by ever-rising housing prices, which means growth hasn’t been driven by unsustainable home building. If interest rates don’t keep rising, and assuming the labor market stays strong, the housing market should return to modest growth."

"The nearby table shows the growth and investment trend over the last three years. Housing and consumer spending helped the economy dodge recession in 2016, but the expansion was tired and needed a lift from capital investment. That arrived in 2017, helping to offset a housing drop-off, and accelerating into 2018 when housing growth was negative.

So what changed in 2017? Well, there was that change of Administration that brought a major policy shift—specifically, an end to willy-nilly regulation and harassment of business. Deregulation reduced the political uncertainty that had caused businesses to delay or reduce investment.

Tax reform arrived in 2018, removing the roadblock of the highest corporate tax rate in the world and inviting companies to repatriate profits held abroad. Investment picked up almost exactly as chief White House economist Kevin Hassett predicted it would. He predicted growth for the year would rise by 3.1% in 2018 on a fourth-quarter to fourth-quarter basis, and growth came in exactly at 3.1%."