Romney: Slashing Spending Will Cause A Recession Or Depression...

[Leon Troutsky]

A rare moment of truth-telling by Romney:

Halperin: I want to get to a lot of those, and let’s go to spending, which is a big thing for you, one of the bases of comparison – you say you’d cut spending a lot more than the President has. And like most governors I know, you can get down in the detail. A lot of people don’t know that about you; you can really get your arms around a policy issue and go deep, so let’s talk about spending. You have a plan, as you said, over a number of years, to reduce spending dramatically. Why not in the first year, if you’re elected — why not in 2013, go all the way and propose the kind of budget with spending restraints, that you’d like to see after four years in office? Why not do it more quickly?

Romney: 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%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression. So I’m not going to do that, of course. What you do is you make adjustments on a basis that show, in the first year, actions that over time get you to a balanced budget. So I’m not saying I’m going to come up with ideas five or ten years from now that get us to a balanced budget. Instead I’m going to take action immediately by eliminating programs like Obamacare, which become more and more expensive down the road – by eliminating them, we get to a balanced budget. And I’d do it in a way that does not have a huge reduction in the first year, but instead has an increasing reduction as time goes on, and given the growth of the economy, you don’t have a reduction in the overall scale of the GDP. I don’t want to have us go into a recession in order to balance the budget. 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.

I wonder why the Republicans (including Romney) are pushing for Obama to slash spending so drastically right now?

[Joremarid]

kinda agree with Romney here. Myself being a slightly to left moderate that can't be good for him.

[Leon Troutsky]

kinda agree with Romney here. Myself being a slightly to left moderate that can't be good for him.

Oh, I agree with him as well. I just wonder what all of the "we have a spending problem not a revenue problem" and the "austerity is the only way" folks think about Romney's comments.

[Joremarid]

Oh, I agree with him as well. I just wonder what all of the "we have a spending problem not a revenue problem" and the "austerity is the only way" folks think about Romney's comments.

Well they made their bed and know they have to lay in it. If they didn't let the fringe right take over their party they wouldn't have to worry about what those crowds have to say.

kinda ironic, considering they would have, and always will, vote for the elephants anyway.

It's amazing that he got nominated. He actually isn't that far from center himself. He's got a little liberal in him as well.

[falconsd56]

Well they made their bed and know they have to lay in it. If they didn't let the fringe right take over their party they wouldn't have to worry about what those crowds have to say.

kinda ironic, considering they would have, and always will, vote for the elephants anyway.

It's amazing that he got nominated. He actually isn't that far from center himself. He's got a little liberal in him as well.

Lots of truth to that.

The problem is he is not embracing that. he is running far far from it. He is trying to paint himself as some right wing fringe conservative .

It reminds me Mccain in 08.

There was a massive difference between the 2000 Mccain and the 2008 Mccain.

[Leon Troutsky]

Well they made their bed and know they have to lay in it. If they didn't let the fringe right take over their party they wouldn't have to worry about what those crowds have to say.

kinda ironic, considering they would have, and always will, vote for the elephants anyway.

It's amazing that he got nominated. He actually isn't that far from center himself. He's got a little liberal in him as well.

If he were running as the person who used to be Mass. Governor then he'd be a solid candidate. Unfortunately, like McCain, he built a reputation for being overall moderate on fiscal and social issues (center right) and he had to go full blown Tea Party to get the nomination. Now he's stuck on the fringes and can't come back to the center without abandoning his base and/or looking like a complete phony. He heaped praise upon Paul Ryan's budget and is campaigning with Donald Trump. Does anyone think he can turn around and say he doesn't support Ryan or somehow disavow Trump's idiocy while co-hosting fundraisers and campaign events with him this week?

[Leon Troutsky]

Lots of truth to that.

The problem is he is not embracing that. he is running far far from it. He is trying to paint himself as some right wing fringe conservative .

It reminds me Mccain in 08.

There was a massive difference between the 2000 Mccain and the 2008 Mccain.

Exactly the analogy I was thinking. Republicans will hurt Romney's chances by forcing him to continually prove his fringe conservative credentials at the precise time he should be making moderate appeals for the general election.

[lostone]

Getting rid of obamacare is okay if you replace it with something

[Peyton]

^{I don't think Romney's message is inconsistent on the budget, but this is the first time I've seen him explain his position well.}

^{It's basically the same position as Paul Ryan's budget, which is instead of cutting spending dramatically right now, lower the trajectory of spending by making changes in the future to Medicare etc. and repealling Obama's healthcare plan.}

^{I think on this issue, he has a winning message.}

[JayOzOne]

Getting rid of obamacare is okay if you replace it with something

They aren't talking about replacing it with anything. There's a reason for that. And the Boehners and McConnells of the world are desperate for Romney to win and then explain what he means in the quote above because they have little intention of following through with the rhetoric of the last four years. That was simply to get the current president out, not to oppose his policies on most issues in any major way.

[Joremarid]

If he were running as the person who used to be Mass. Governor then he'd be a solid candidate. Unfortunately, like McCain, he built a reputation for being overall moderate on fiscal and social issues (center right) and he had to go full blown Tea Party to get the nomination. Now he's stuck on the fringes and can't come back to the center without abandoning his base and/or looking like a complete phony. He heaped praise upon Paul Ryan's budget and is campaigning with Donald Trump. Does anyone think he can turn around and say he doesn't support Ryan or somehow disavow Trump's idiocy while co-hosting fundraisers and campaign events with him this week?

agreed with bolded especially. the thing is, if he does win, how is he going to act as president? Will he be a TEA party fringe right? i doubt it. Will he be more like the governor of Mass? probably. If so I don't think he would be a bad president at all but at the risk of alienating the right. But at the same time that may not matter considering he would run uncontested (presumably) in 16.

[JayOzOne]

agreed with bolded especially. the thing is, if he does win, how is he going to act as president? Will he be a TEA party fringe right? i doubt it. Will he be more like the governor of Mass? probably. If so I don't think he would be a bad president at all but at the risk of alienating the right. But at the same time that may not matter considering he would run uncontested (presumably) in 16.

If he makes the cuts that many conservatives are demanding to education, transportation, and HHS, he won't be re-elected in 2016.

[Joremarid]

If he makes the cuts that many conservatives are demanding to education, transportation, and HHS, he won't be re-elected in 2016.

exactly. he will probably act as a more moderate if elected, if anything to give him a chance at a second term. The irony of the "anyone but Obama" mantra is that they likely will elect someone very close to him politically, which as we all know is slightly to the right moderate.

[Zodiac]

Politicians-Anything involving stopping the flow of money into our pockets will hurt, seriously guys it will! You gotta believe us, it will hurt if you stop spending money that eventually ends up in our pockets! Here wanna sign off on this bill hiking the tax rates up 40%?

[JayOzOne]

There's a reason no budget hawk on either side of the aisle hasn't balked at the free flow of Federal aid to his/her district. That same reason is why they won't turn off the tap: it'd be political suicide. I'd think that between + 300 congressmen and 40 Senators, they could save the country a lot of money by refusing to direct my tax dollars to their constituents.

[MattRyan2Canton]

were already in a depression o_O

[Psychic Gibbon]

I agree with him here. Deep cuts in spending across the board as seen in the various Paul Ryan budget proposals will hurt more than they'll heal. What they need to do is to eliminate redundant agencies and programs and consolidate their responsibilities into a singular entity, reform programs like Medicare and Medicaid so they can negotiate fixed, lower pricing for the products they buy instead of paying whatever health providers decide to charge, pull out of Afghanistan since it's a failed state and thus a waste of lives and resources at this point along with dozens of non-essential bases around the world, and so on. Logical spending cuts coupled with reasonable tax raises will go further to helping the entire situation than slashing spending for the sake of slashing spending.

[falconsd56]

I agree with him here. Deep cuts in spending across the board as seen in the various Paul Ryan budget proposals will hurt more than they'll heal. What they need to do is to eliminate redundant agencies and programs and consolidate their responsibilities into a singular entity, reform programs like Medicare and Medicaid so they can negotiate fixed, lower pricing for the products they buy instead of paying whatever health providers decide to charge, pull out of Afghanistan since it's a failed state and thus a waste of lives and resources at this point along with dozens of non-essential bases around the world, and so on. Logical spending cuts coupled with reasonable tax raises will go further to helping the entire situation than slashing spending for the sake of slashing spending.

The problem is neither party is very interested in that.

for all the talk about the deficit......its just that all talk

[RHEC]

Spending more also puts us in more debt.. either way we are fcked.

[Gritzblitz 2.0]

Getting rid of obamacare is okay if you replace it with something

The Supreme Court may do that for him if they rule that individual mandates are unconstitutional.

[Boogie Man]

Spending more also puts us in more debt.. either way we are fcked.

Reducing the deficit is important, but our nation's number one priority should be job growth. We need to find a way to get back to producing more consumer and industrial goods. The road won't be easy with so much cheap labor available around the globe, but if we can't find a way, we are doomed as a nation.

[RHEC]

Reducing the deficit is important, but our nation's number one priority should be job growth. We need to find a way to get back to producing more consumer and industrial goods. The road won't be easy with so much cheap labor available around the globe, but if we can't find a way, we are doomed as a nation.

This country became some-what cheap since everything these days are made from China. What in the world would happen if China attacks us?

[lostone]

This country became some-what cheap since everything these days are made from China. What in the world would happen if China attacks us?

Global Economy would be done at that point...

[Peyton]

The chances of China wanting to go to war with the United States are absolutely zilch.

Now China owning America.....much more likely.

[Rambler]

They always say the first thing you do when you find your dug into a whole is to stop digging. We all know drastic cuts are not possible but if you can show a real seriousness in curbing the growth of spending and at the same time inject some confidence into our economy by holding the line on taxes, the rest will fall into place.