P3ter_Griffin
05-27-2012, 10:43 AM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/25/romney-spending-cuts-depression-tea-party_n_1545933.html
Romney said that pushing drastic spending cuts during shaky economic times is a prescription for "recession or depression."
Asked by Time's Mark Halperin Wednesday why he wouldn't push major cuts in his first year, Romney responded with reasoning that would be largely uncontroversial if not for the past two years' mainstreaming of an economic philosophy that insists government spending actually costs jobs, rather than creates job.
"Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5 percent. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I'm not going to do that, of course," Romney said in an answer picked up by former bank regulator William Black, a HuffPost blogger.
Any spending cuts, Romney said, should come down the road, after the economy has improved.
"I don't want to have us go into a recession in order to balance the budget," he said. "I'd like to have us have high rates of growth at the same time we bring down federal spending, on, if you will, a ramp that’s affordable, but that does not cause us to enter into a economic decline."
Romney's reasoning accepts the basic premise that government spending adds to GDP and leads to economic growth, at least during times when consumer spending and private-sector demand is down.
While rival schools of economic thought have never agreed on each other's fundamental principles, over the past several decades, the notion that more government spending helps during a recession had gained broad acceptance. But it has been rejected by Tea Party members of Congress and conservative interest groups like the Club for Growth, who have bemoaned Obama's stimulus package and other efforts to boost the economy as job-killing government spending. Club for Growth declined to comment for this article.
The rhetorical thrust of a sharp distinction between the Tea Party's demand for big cuts and Obama's supposed propensity to spend has been a central tenet of the GOP's political messaging over the past two years. And Romney has run afoul of budget-cut purists before, recently over comments he made during a campaign stop in Michigan.
"If you just cut, if all you're thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you'll slow down the economy," Romney said, according to MSNBC.
That comment prompted this response from Club for Growth lobbyist Andy Roth: "It's hogwash. It confirms yet again that Romney is not a limited government conservative."
More ammo to try and round up Santorum and Gingrich's delegates.
Romney said that pushing drastic spending cuts during shaky economic times is a prescription for "recession or depression."
Asked by Time's Mark Halperin Wednesday why he wouldn't push major cuts in his first year, Romney responded with reasoning that would be largely uncontroversial if not for the past two years' mainstreaming of an economic philosophy that insists government spending actually costs jobs, rather than creates job.
"Well because, if you take a trillion dollars for instance, out of the first year of the federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5 percent. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I'm not going to do that, of course," Romney said in an answer picked up by former bank regulator William Black, a HuffPost blogger.
Any spending cuts, Romney said, should come down the road, after the economy has improved.
"I don't want to have us go into a recession in order to balance the budget," he said. "I'd like to have us have high rates of growth at the same time we bring down federal spending, on, if you will, a ramp that’s affordable, but that does not cause us to enter into a economic decline."
Romney's reasoning accepts the basic premise that government spending adds to GDP and leads to economic growth, at least during times when consumer spending and private-sector demand is down.
While rival schools of economic thought have never agreed on each other's fundamental principles, over the past several decades, the notion that more government spending helps during a recession had gained broad acceptance. But it has been rejected by Tea Party members of Congress and conservative interest groups like the Club for Growth, who have bemoaned Obama's stimulus package and other efforts to boost the economy as job-killing government spending. Club for Growth declined to comment for this article.
The rhetorical thrust of a sharp distinction between the Tea Party's demand for big cuts and Obama's supposed propensity to spend has been a central tenet of the GOP's political messaging over the past two years. And Romney has run afoul of budget-cut purists before, recently over comments he made during a campaign stop in Michigan.
"If you just cut, if all you're thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you'll slow down the economy," Romney said, according to MSNBC.
That comment prompted this response from Club for Growth lobbyist Andy Roth: "It's hogwash. It confirms yet again that Romney is not a limited government conservative."
More ammo to try and round up Santorum and Gingrich's delegates.