Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a unique fix for sharply falling consumer confidence, which is now at the lowest level in twelve years — even worse than during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Thursday, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE), told the Treasury chief, “despite all this progress, we’re seeing consumer confidence is not really rebounding the way that the economy seems to be.”
“In your opinion,” Ricketts then asked Bessent, “what more can we in the Senate be doing with regard to consumer confidence and making, you know, obviously — we had 40-year-high inflation under the Biden administration — but what more can we be doing in the Senate to be able to help out with confidence in consumers?”
Bessent replied immediately.
“Other than telling consumers to turn off MSNBC,” he said, referring to the rebranded MS NOW.
“A large part of it is a survey problem, where Democrats vote very low, Republicans are more realistic, and then we end up, what we’re seeing,” he added, suggesting that the problem is not the economy — despite what experts see as persistent inflation and a “hiring recession,” but how people who watch or read a single news outlet perceive the economy.