Ian Haworth: Biden’s Man-Made Recession

On Thursday, the Commerce Department will release its growth numbers for the second quarter of 2022, and we will know for sure whether the United States has — under Biden’s incompetence — achieved two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth.

On Thursday, we will confirm what most already assume — that the United States is experiencing a recession.

Yes, a recession, despite Biden inheriting an economy that was historically strong except for an entirely voluntary shutdown in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. All he had to do was turn the lights back on and go back to sleep. Instead, he spent more money than has ever been seen before, enforced idiotic energy policy at home and abroad, and implemented a foreign policy which handed over Afghanistan to the Taliban, emboldened China, and triggered the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Not bad for 18 months of work!

And what is the Biden strategy for turning the tide? Rather than admitting fault, they’re just redefining the common understanding of what a recession is! 

And just like that, boom! No recession!

Biden himself chose to move the goalposts by taking credit (again) for the country’s 3.6% unemployment rate — which is still higher than the 3.5% unemployment rate under former President Donald Trump before the man-made economic shutdown of March 2020.

“We’re not going to be in a recession, in my view,” Biden said. “The unemployment rate is still one of the lowest we’ve had in history. It’s in the 3.6 percent area. We still find ourselves with people investing.”

“My hope is we go from this rapid growth to a steady growth. And so, we’ll see some coming down. But I don’t think we’re going to — God willing — I don’t think we’re going to see a recession,” Biden added.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said that we are not in a recession, but rather a “period of transition in which growth is slowing,” and that “”Even if [GDP growth] is negative, we are not in a recession now.”

“And I would, you know, warn that we should not characterizing that as a recession,” she argued.

Not to be outdone in a competition for “who’s the dumbest,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeated this nonsensical logic, saying that “we’re seeing the strength of the economy and the labor market.”

There are two issues here.

The first is that the Biden administration likely already knows that we have been in a recession for months, and are doing preemptive damage control by shifting the goalposts in the same way as debates surrounding gender, biology, or war — who remembers Biden’s “minor incursion” moment?

The second, however, is even more demonstrative of his inability to lead: the attempt to compare this recession to other recessions.

Except this recession is unlike others because it is — again — entirely man-made. We are in a recession because of Biden’s horrendous monetary and energy policy partnered with his brainless foreign policy. 

There is no external factor which has caused an economic crash beyond the stumbling fingers of Biden and his chosen few. And no amount of word-changing or excuse-making will ever distract from that fact.

Follow Ian Haworth on Twitter.