(I)f you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression.Oh, wait a minute. That was Mitt Romney doing that Beltway "gaffe" thing, where blurting out the truth is seen as a "mistake," especially when it runs counter to every crank proposal Romney has endorsed that has been forthcoming from the Ryan Austerity Megaphone of the GOP - the dominant party "intelligentsia," who are either economically illiterate or WANT to plunge the country into even deeper extended depression.
Jon Chait notes: "Romney says this as if it’s completely obvious that reducing the deficit in the short term would throw the economy back into recession, even though he and his party have been arguing the opposite case with hysterical fervor. Republicans have committed themselves to Austrian economic notions and other hoary doctrines justifying the position that reducing deficits is a helpful way out of a liquidity trap"
I'm not convinced Willard M. Romney is particularly smart, but it's clear that beneath the nauseating facade of sheer cynicism there's still some small grain of common sense. The fact that he's a practiced liar when glibly espousing the GOP far Right's agenda as his own - albeit subject to the occasional "Beltway gaffe" as in the CNN interview - appears to be the only "redeeming" feature of his candidacy, not a fatal flaw. Which is pathetic.
(updated)
