GDP Up 0.6%, Federal Government Owed Thank You Note

GDP rose at a seasonally adjusted 0.6% annual rate in the first quarter. This is the first estimate of first quarter GDP from the Commerce Department, so I'll be waiting for some revisions down the line. Although I am most definitely not an economist, a few interesting numbers in the report caught my eye. Consumer spending was weak, rising a meager 1%, the smallest increase since the second quarter of 2001. Purchases of durable goods fell 6.1% in the first quarter, residential fixed investment dropped by 26.7%, and business spending fell by 2.5%. Inventories, on the other hand rose, causing real final sales of domestic product (GDP less the change in private inventories) to decrease by 0.2%. What is offsetting these abysmal numbers? It appears to be the federal government, which increased spending by 4.6% after a meager 0.5% increase in the fourth quarter of last year. Any actual economists out there want to throw in their two cents?