Don't play Joe Biden's recession game

I'm tired of hearing Joe Biden's economic and communications teams attempt to "redefine" the economic term recession. It's irrelevant if we're heading into a recession, teetering on the edge of a recession, in a recession or "God willing" (Joe Biden's quote), we won't go into a recession. Whatever position we're in, the indisputable fact is that the economy isn't creating prosperity or wealth for families.

That's the only benchmark that's worthwhile. If people are getting lifted out of poverty, which happened during the pre-COVID Trump economy, that's a great economy. If minority communities are experiencing the lowest unemployment rates in this nation's history, which happened during the pre-COVID Trump economy, that's a great economy, too. If inflation is virtually invisible while the economy is growing rapidly, that's a great economy, too. That's what happened during the Trump administration.

The economy went from growing at a 6.5% pace in Q1 of 2021 to shrinking at a rate of 1.6% rate in Q1 of 2022. In that same time period, inflation went from 1.4% to 9.1%. Whether you call these conditions a recession, a slowdown or something else is irrelevant. Brian Deese and Janet Yellen suck as Joe Biden's economic team. That isn't just my opinion. It's what people told I&I/TIPP recently:

Honest people know that the Trump economy outperformed the Biden economy by orders of magnitude. Thanks to Trump's deregulation policies, nationwide average gas prices never went above $3.00/gallon. Under Biden, we've been over $3.00/gallon for over a year.

David Harsanyi's article has a perfect title:

Call It Whatever You Want, The Economy Sucks

Exactly. Inflation is high. We're either in a recession or teetering on the edge of recession. Families frequently face the question of what bill to not pay this month. People's paychecks don't stretch far thanks to the aforementioned inflation. It's just a matter of time until spending collapses and sends the economy into recession. Higher interest rates are too high, which will soon kill the housing market.

White House correspondents shouldn't ask if we're in a recession. They should ask which shoe is the next to drop. They should ask Democrats, starting with Joe Manchin, why they're willing to plunge the economy into the deepest recession in 40 years:

In an unexpected turnabout, Sen. Joe Manchin announced Wednesday that he had reached an expansive agreement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer which had eluded them for months on health care costs, energy and climate issues, taxing higher earners and large corporations and reducing federal debt.

What a blithering idiot. Those tax hikes will definitely kill this stumbling economy. Listen to this weasel-word explanation for the deal:

In his statement, Manchin said the measure "would dedicate hundreds of billions of dollars to deficit reduction by adopting a tax policy that protects small businesses and working-class Americans while ensuring that large corporations and the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share in taxes."

That tax hike won't produce the revenues that the CBO will forecast it will. As you'd expect, KJP was dumbfounded: