Bush's war economy.

• Position: Comment - George W. Bush

When the Commerce Department announced that the economy grew at a torrid 7.2 percent in the third quarter, President Bush cheered and some Democrats gulped. Both reactions were premature.

The Bush economy is not likely to sustain itself. Nor does the uptick compensate, in any significant way, for the destruction Bush's policies have wreaked on U.S. workers over the last three years.

The high rate of growth "is great as far as it goes," says Max Sawicky, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. "But you shouldn't gloss over all the damage that's already been done: the bankruptcies, the mortgage foreclosures, people going without health insurance, evictions, repos--all the things that happen when you run out of money."

The amazing thing about the growth in the third quarter is that it took this long for the economy to get moving. Alan Greenspan at the Federal Reserve Board has been holding interest rates down at historically low levels. Bush has been spending money on the military like he was Ronald Reagan, and his summer tax cuts--as lopsided as they were in favor of the rich--still shoveled $100 billion of disposable income into the economy.

"Almost anything that pumps that much aggregate demand into the economy is going to be expansive," says Robert Pollin, an economist at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

But Bush can't rely on such injections forever. While Greenspan continues to hold interest rates down, he will be under pressure to raise rates if the economy keeps growing. On November 6, Greenspan gave the first hint that the party may be over. "No central bank can ever afford to be less than vigilant about the prospects for inflation," he told the Securities Industry Association.

And no matter what Greenspan does, long-term interest rates are already rising, making it harder for businesses to take out loans and dampening the home-refinancing market. In fact, much of the growth in the third quarter was in response to feverish refinancings that have now chilled.

"You had the peak of the mortgage refinancing boom, which led to a huge flood of cash," says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "And people spent that money on cars and home remodeling." The numbers back Baker up. Spending on consumer durables, such as cars, was up 26.9 percent from the previous quarter, and new home construction and remodeling rose 20.4 percent.

Already, the early numbers for the fourth quarter are not...