Letter: Not a depression is bad?

I've been watching all the ads about inflation as a result of policies under the Biden (and, by inference, Harris) administration. Those ads want you to conveniently forget why we are not in a huge depression. The Biden administration was faced with the worst epidemic since the 1919 flu. That epidemic threatened the existence of hundreds of thousands of businesses and the employment of millions of Americans. Without the approximate $4.5 trillion (yes — with a "T") invested by the government, the U.S. and the rest of the world would have been thrown into an economic depression that would have rivaled the Great Depression of the '30s. The Federal Reserve also took actions (Remember "quantitative easing"?) at the onset of the epidemic, and increased the federal funds rate at the end, all of which kept the US economy running and facilitated a soft landing. And why is not being in a depression bad?

Alan Brown

East side

Disclaimer: As submitted to the Arizona Daily Star.