US President Joe Biden is steering his country into a recession — and an electoral car-wreck for his Democratic Party — says an economist.
The 80-year-old White House resident has increasingly focused in public speeches on singing the praises of his economic policies — which he has dubbed "Bidenomics."
But economist Mitch Roschelle told Sputnik that Biden is a habitual liar.
"This is a man who lied about his class ranking at Syracuse Law School. This is a man who was kicked out of a presidential race, primary race in the eighties because he stole a speech," he pointed out. "So I think lying is one of his core competencies."
"It's very interesting when the president speaks, when he wants to accentuate a point, he whispers," Roschelle noted. "When he talks about 'Bidenomics,' he always whispers: 'it's working!' I think he's whispering for a reason, because it's not."
"Bidenomics is not working, and that's why we have inflation," he stressed.
The commentator noted the optimistic figures issued by the the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta last month, claiming gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 4.9 percent. But he warned that would simply lead to more interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve in its bid to dampen down the market and cut inflation.
"The problem is that means the economy is still hot. And remember, the reason why the Fed increases interest rates is to cool down the economy and to start trying to cool down demand, which is what drives the economy," Roschelle said. "So I have a feeling they're going to continue to raise rates. And that's what's freaking everybody out, because the capital markets want this to be over with. And I don't think it's going to be over with."
A recent poll showed that a majority of Americans expected the economy to slide into recession by 2024 — the year of the next presidential election. But would that hurt Biden's reelection hopes?
"It assumes that Joe Biden is the Democratic candidate or Democrat Party candidate in 2024," Roschelle ventured. "Let's say its [California Governor] Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom could easily throw Biden under the bus and blame it all on Biden and try to say: 'listen, vote for me, I'll fix this. I did such a wonderful job in California,'" he added with a hint of irony.
"I think it's going to be very difficult for anybody running in 2024 to ignore the elephant in the room, which is the economy," Roschelle said. "Forget about all of the polling, whether Trump's up or Biden's up. 90 percent of Americans think the number one issue facing this country is the economy" — followed by people trafficking across the Mexican border.
"On the economy, I think you're going to have a plurality of more economic data that's bad in 2024 than you're going to have good economic data," like that from the Atlanta Fed, "and it's really, really hard to spin that economic data," he added.