The following is adapted from a talk delivered by Andy Puzder on February 22, 2023, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Indian Wells, California.
Just about everybody on Wall Street knows, despite what you read in the financial press, that the Biden administration’s economic policies are driving our economy into a recessionary ditch. In a recent Wall Street Journal survey of 23 large financial institutions that do business directly with the Federal Reserve, 16 predicted a recession in 2023 and two predicted a recession in 2024, while only five predicted that we would avoid a recession—although even those five predicted we’d have only one-half percent economic growth, well below the 2.1 percent average over the past 20 years and dangerously close to what has traditionally been considered a recession.
A recession is defined, traditionally, as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. At least it was defined that way before the financial press redefined it prior to the 2022 midterms, ensuring that despite two consecutive quarters of negative growth, President Biden’s policies couldn’t be labeled recessionary. But regardless of the definition, this negative growth meant declining standards of living, fewer job opportunities, lower wages, and increased poverty for the American people. Overall, we have become a far less vibrant and far less prosperous society on the verge of a serious recession.
The hard economic times we are experiencing are especially striking as they come on the heels of the Trump boom, which opened our eyes again to American economic potential when we have low taxes, reduced regulation, and a bountiful supply of domestic energy. Everybody, particularly minority and low-wage earners, reaped the benefits in the Trump years of abundant job opportunities, increasing wages, historic highs in family income, and historic lows in rates of poverty and unemployment.
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