Economy Enters Recession in Major Blow for the Biden Administration

Well, that escalated quickly.

Just days ago President Biden sat on camera saying the economy would not be entering a recession. “We’re not going to be in a recession,” he said. That’s how it started almost as foreshadowed writing on the wall for what was to come just a few days ahead.

After all, when Biden says something is or is not going to happen, the outcome is usually the opposite of what he says.

Short reminder from Biden just days ago about how the country isn’t headed for a recession. Oops:

Asking most voters, they’ll tell you they already feel like the country is in a recession but the GDP numbers out Thursday morning simply provide the data to back it up:

The US economy shrank again in the last three months, unofficially signaling the start of a recession.

The commerce department announced Thursday that gross domestic product (GDP) – a broad measure of the price of goods and services – decreased at an annual rate of 0.9% in the second quarter after falling at an annual rate of 1.6% in the first three months.

The bad news will be a major blow for the Biden administration as it prepares for a tough midterm election season. White House officials have tried to tamp down talk of a recession, arguing that many parts of the economy remain strong.

The growth rate stands in marked contrast to the robust 6.9% annual increase in GDP recorded in the final quarter of 2021 when the economy roared back from Covid shutdowns.

How did the economy go from roaring back in the last quarter of 2021 to a total dive in 2022? We’re not that many months removed from a 6.9% growth rate. There are plenty of reasons, many of them exacerbated by Biden’s policies and inaction:

After posting its strongest gain since 1984 last year, the U.S. economy began to slow earlier this year due to a confluence of factors.

Supply chain issues, brought about initially by outsized demand for goods over services during the Covid pandemic, were at the core of the problem. That only intensified when Russia invaded Ukraine in February and, more recently, when China enacted strict shutdown measures to battle a burst of Covid cases.

It’s the feckless nature of this administration that seems to be causing the most discontentment among voters of all stripes. Biden has been in government for decades yet somehow when he finally gets put in charge, he’s unable to move the levers and grease the right wheels to alleviate the issues facing the country.

Canceling oil leases and shutting down pipelines immediately following his inauguration set the country on a collision course with high gas prices and economic damage due to increasing costs of transportation. That part is squarely on Biden.

Writing at Roll Call, David Winston offers a breakdown of the polling data which continues to plague the Biden administration and makes the case that regardless of the negative GDP growth and whether the country is “officially” in recession territory (it is), voters have already reached a verdict on Biden’s presidency:

• 61 percent of voters believe the country is already in recession; only 25 percent don’t.
• 67 percent don’t believe gas prices are going down significantly; 23 percent believe they are.
• 54 percent disapprove of the job Biden is doing overall as president; 36 percent approve. (Independents are at 60 percent disapprove, 25 percent approve.)
• 68 percent say the country is on the wrong track; 21 percent believe it’s going in the right direction.
• 57 percent disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, 33 percent approve. (Independents are at 62 percent disapprove, 21 percent approve.)
• 61 percent disapprove of Biden’s handling of inflation; 30 percent approve. (Independents are at 66 percent disapprove, 19 percent approve.)
• 66 percent say the economy is on the wrong track; 21 percent believe it is headed in the right direction. (Independents are at 74 percent wrong track, 11 percent right direction.)
• 51 percent say Biden’s economic policies are incorrect; 29 percent say they are correct.
• 52 percent believe government policies under Biden and Democrats in Congress have caused inflation to increase and prices to go up; 36 percent do not believe that.
• Voters say they have more confidence in Republicans to handle inflation, by 48 percent Republicans to 34 percent Democrats.

The news for Biden is that people already think and feel as if the country is in a recession. Arguing after the fact about how to define “recession” is like trying to put the horse back in the barn. It’s an academic exercise that focuses wrongly on messaging rather than trying to fix the bad policies which created the situation in the first place.