Well, it is official: As of yesterday’s bad second quarter economic report showing that our economy had shrunk by .9%, America is in a recession. This is because the first quarter report also indicated that our economy had shrunk (by 1.6%), and the commonly accepted definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.
At least that was the commonly accepted definition of a national recession until Joe Biden called upon his minions to proclaim in unison that no, we were not really in a recession and the economy was actually in pretty good shape. Joe himself then made a brief comment to reporters to the effect that it didn’t seem like a recession to him, before fleeing the scene and leaving reporters to devour his easily befuddled press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre. She promptly declared that “We’re seeing a transition into stable and steady growth…,” but she was clearly way out of her element. We seriously doubt that many folks were paying much attention to her musings on the state of the economy, anyway.
But the fact remains that things are clearly not going well- that much is obvious to even the most heedless of our fellow citizens. The economy is volatile and substantial parts of it are performing poorly. Inflation is soaring, energy prices are double what they were when this president took office, necessities like food and housing are becoming unaffordable for many, and borrowing money to stay afloat has become more expensive for all. Strangely, several million people refuse to return to the workforce despite the fact that there are plenty of jobs to be had. What’s more, the experts don’t really know where we are headed- will this be a relatively mild recession, or as many predict, are things about to get one Hell of a lot worse?
Now this is not a good place to be, and one might well ask how we got here? But first, allow me to digress for a moment: Recall that less than two short years ago, under President Trump the economy was recovering from COVID, inflation was under two percent, interest rates were near their historic lows, and energy was plentiful and cheap (gas was half its current price). Several COVID vaccines were only months away and our national debt was many trillions of dollars lower than it is now.
So how did we arrive at this sad state of affairs in so short a time? The answer is obvious- only a doddering but deceitful Joe Biden, controlled by the progressive, neo-Marxist wing of the Democrat Party, could have caused this much damage so quickly and so completely!
Who else would have begun a new presidency by attempting to shut down the eighty percent of our energy production provided by fossil fuels? Who else would have mis-spent trillions of dollars, much of it for Democrat political ends, thereby creating huge imbalances in the supply and demand for our nations’ goods, even as productivity had not fully recovered to pre-COVID levels? Too much money chasing around too few goods is the classic cause of inflation, and reducing domestic energy production even as the economy required more energy, could not help but cause gas prices to shoot up.
So how bad will the economy, and with it the lives of most American citizens, ultimately worsen? Even as I write this article, a new half-trillion dollar round of spending is wending its way through Congress, along with a tax increase. (Thank you, Joe Manchin!) This will further stoke inflation, of course, but the tax increase will make a serious recession far more likely. To tame the out-of-control inflation, the Federal Reserve last Wednesday raised interest rates another three quarters of a percent on top of the one and a half percent increases of the previous two months. Even worse, the Fed hinted at further raises in the coming months. Don’t forget that these rate increases are intended to slow down our economy, which again, will also make the recession worse.
As we teeter on the precipice of an unpredictable economic future (and I have not even touched on the rapidly deteriorating geopolitical situation, the worsening border crisis, the politicization of our school curricula, etc.), be reminded that the gross and misdirected overspending was all avoidable. The attempt to shut down most of our energy production and replace it with expensive and unreliable sources was also avoidable. Why were such basic economic mistakes ever made in the first place?
The fundamental problem here is that progressive Democrats do not learn and they do not admit the error of their ways, because they are Marxists. If we learn anything from history, it is that Marxists do not learn from history. In fact, they are even now complaining that the problem with our economy is that they have not done enough to transform the United States into a more social democratic or even outright Socialist nation.
So be forewarned and vote to save our country on November 8th, before it’s too late!
Louis Gurvich, Chairman
Republican Party of Louisiana
