[If] you take a trillion dollars…out of the…federal budget, that would shrink GDP over 5%. That is by definition throwing us into recession or depression.
Quote of the Day: Karl Rove
The ironic thing is we now have the two front-runners: [Newt] Gingrich, the new contender, having favored an individual mandate for the entire country, and Mitt Romney, the former or maybe current front-runner nationally, having supported a mandate for his state of Massachusetts.
— Karl Rove, on the centerpiece of “ObamaCare” (Fox News)
Quote of the Day: David Glasner
So what’s that you say, Galileo? The sun is stationary and the earth travels around it? You must be kidding! Why any child can tell you that the sun rises in the east and moves across the sky every day and then travels beneath the earth at night to reappear in the east the next morning. And you expect anyone in his right mind to believe otherwise. What? It’s the earth rotating on its axis? Are you possessed of demons? And you say that the earth is round? If the earth were round, how could anybody stand at the bottom of the earth and not fall off? Galileo, you are a raving lunatic. And you, Mr. Einstein, you say that there is something called a space-time continuum, so that time slows down as the speed one travels approaches the speed of light. My God, where could you have come up with such an idea? By that reasoning, two people could not agree on which of two events happened first if one of them was stationary and the other traveling at half the speed of light. Away with you, and don’t ever dare speak such nonsense again, or, by God, you shall be really, really sorry.
— David Glasner, parodying Stephen Moore’s latest WSJ article (Federal Trade Commission)
Quote of the Day: Jonathan Chait
In retrospect, [Washington] now [sees] what should have been obvious: Increasing the political leverage of the Republican Party made a Grand Bargain less, not more, likely. Moreover, the deficit hawks who represent the center of Washington establishment thought badly underestimated the danger entailed by tying high stakes negotiations involving the Republican Party to a cataclysmic event. Happy visions of Bob Dole and Tip O’Neill danced in their heads, oblivious to the reality of what they were facing.
— Jonathan Chait (The New Republic)
Quote of the Day: Bruce Bartlett
Here are a few examples of Obama’s effective conservatism:
- His stimulus bill was half the size that his advisers thought necessary;
- He continued Bush’s war and national security policies without change and even retained Bush’s defense secretary;
- He put forward a health plan almost identical to those that had been supported by Republicans such as Mitt Romney in the recent past, pointedly rejecting the single-payer option favored by liberals;
- He caved to conservative demands that the Bush tax cuts be extended without getting any quid pro quo whatsoever;
- And in the past few weeks he has supported deficit reductions that go far beyond those offered by Republicans.
— Bruce Bartlett (The Fiscal Times)