Mitt Romney's Crazy Talk II

Anyone who believes Willard Mitt Romney is a moderate, thoughtful alternative to the cranks and crazies who populate the contemporary GOP - to, say, a Michelle Bachmann who will say anything, no matter how evidence-free or insanely hyperbolic - need go no farther than the following quote from Romney's current stump speech:

“President Obama believes that government should create equal outcomes. In an entitlement society, everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to take risk. That which is earned by some is redistributed to the others. And the only people who truly enjoy any real rewards are those who do the redistributing — the government.”

Romney, in his desperation to get the top government job, has shape-shifted himself into an extremist as nutty and hysterical as the rest of them. He is explicitly claiming that President Obama is some sort of socialist who doesn't value education, entrepreneurial risk or work. This is an assertion, frankly, so far removed from the reality of President Obama's actual policies, his rhetoric and his values it doesn't deserve detailed refutation.

Anyone who believes this or asserts this absurdity demagogically isn't fit to teach a junior high school history or civics class, much less aspire to the highest office in the land. Romney brings shame on himself and his party, as much as the fringe characters like Donald Trump, Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann have with their "crazy talk."


(Paul Krugman also references this Romney nonsense in an excellent column today.)

"How Austerity Is Killing Europe

Jeff Madrick at NYRB:

"The European Union has become a vicious circle of burgeoning debt leading to radical austerity measures, which in turn further weaken economic conditions and result in calls for still more damaging cuts in government spending and higher taxes. The European debt crisis began with Greece, and that nation remains the European Union’s most stricken economy. But it has spread inexorably to Ireland, Portugal, Italy, and Spain, and even threatens France and possibly the UK. It need not have done so. Rarely do we get so stark an example of bad—arguably even perverse—economic thinking in action." 

Read the rest of Madrick's excellent piece on the fallacy of austerity economics HERE.