America’s sluggish economy still looms over the land like a stationary dark cloud that shows no sign of moving away under the Obama administration.

The nation’s second quarter growth rate, as measured by its gross domestic product, came in at a mediocre 2.3 percent ― better than the first three months of this year when the economy barely grew at a sickly 0.6 percent.

Many economists were forecasting a stronger economic revival nearer to 3 percent or more. But the economy was still being pulled down by the economic undertow of anti-investment, anti-growth, anti-job creation policies.

They include higher taxes on the economy, particularly investors, and the threat of more to come if Hillary Clinton is elected president. Plus increasing business regulation, from Wall Street to Main Street from job-killing minimum wage hikes to growing taxation on capital investment.

None of this should come as much of a surprise to most Americans in their daily lives. Consumer confidence fell in July to its lowest level since September, said the U.S. Conference Board, a business research organization for U.S. global companies.

The Gallup Poll this week announced similar declines in its economic confidence surveys, saying that its index “continued its gradual downward slide, reaching ―14 for the week ending July 26. This represents a 10-month low.” Gallup said 32 percent of the Americans they surveyed told them that economic conditions were “poor,” while 57 percent said the economy is “getting worse.”

Meantime, in recent months there has been increasing evidence of Americans cutting back on spending at stores and restaurants. Spending cutbacks in June, for example, were broad-based and far more severe than projected. Building materials fell 1.3 percent, while online retail businesses experienced a 0.4 percent decline. “It certainly is a case of ‘two steps forward, one step back’ for the U.S. economy,” economist Dan Greenhaus of BTIG said of last month’s weak retail sales.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has said that under his proposed policies, the economy will be growing by 4 percent a year. Hillary Clinton hasn’t given us a clue about the level of economic growth she hopes to achieve. In fact, she goes to great lengths to dodge the question entirely.

It is a disturbing sign that she doesn’t know much about economics in general, and even less about what produces stronger economic growth and lifts wages.

If you listen closely to her speeches about this subject you quickly learn that she hasn’t a clue about how to grow an $18 trillion economy.