Not what Bush needs. Or the country he is mismanaging, either.
"A whiff of stagflation is in the air," and the negative impact on corporate earnings and stock prices "could be ugly," said John Makin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.
Some economists are outraged at Makin, saying he's exaggerating current conditions by using "stagflation," a term coined during the malaise of the 1970s to describe the combination of slower growth and higher inflation.
Nevertheless, many experts have acknowledged the U.S. economy is downshifting and inflation pressures are rising.
AEI is no lefty outfit. It is the premier conservative pro-corporate think tank, and is the home of Robert Bork, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Richard Cohen, Newt Gingrich and others.