a decline in a country’s gross domestic product (GDP), or negative real economic growth, for two or more successive quarters of a year.

Bush claims that he inherited a recession and also disputes that we are now in a recession.

As both cannot be true, it seems that “recession” is not a macroeconomic term, rather, a political one.

From a Bush press conference in 2003:

However, there was not three quarters of negative GDP growth in 2001:

But now, when a recession is politically unpalatable, Bush says:

Might it just be that there was a recession in 2001 and there is one now? Or might that require your taking some responsibility, Mr. Bush?