BushCo on Whether the Country is in a Recession: 'Don't Know'

Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress at 2:01 PM on October 7, 2008.

Today, reporters questioned White House Press Secretary Dana Perino on whether the U.S. economy is now in a recession. Perino, however, was unable to answer and became frustrated when reporters continued to push her:

Q Do you think the U.S. economy is in a recession?

MS. PERINO: You know I don't think that we know. ... So I couldn't say. The classic definition of a recession is not something that we could determine now, or forecast. It's something that people look back on. [...]

I don't know -- look, April, I don't know if there's -- if we are in a recession right now. And in fact, there's no one who could actually tell you if we precisely are in a recession right now. [...]

But I don't think anybody could tell you right now if we're in a recession or not. Those are just -- those are determinations that come later.

Watch it:

President Bush and his administration have long resisted admitting that the economy is in trouble by quibbling about the technical definition of "recession."

In April, when most economists were saying that the U.S. economy was in a recession, Bush was insisting that it wasn't. In March, he inexplicably claimed that "when people take a look back at this moment in our economic history, they'll recognize tax cuts work."

Even though Perino said that "no one" can say whether the United States is facing a recession, a new National Association of Business Economists poll finds that two-thirds of economists "say the U.S economy is in recession or will be by the end of the year -- up from a little over half of those surveyed in May." Data also indicate that the United States is in a consumer recession and a labor market recession. Even Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has reluctantly admitted this point, although he too has said that a recession is just "a technical term used by people who are economists and make these kinds of judgment."

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Tagged as: bush, recession, perino