Staying true to his Keynesian form, Mitt Romney said that spending cuts should be pushed down the road so that a depression isn't caused. In the interim, he advocates increases in spending for the Pentagon and the Military Industrial Complex.
Romney Argues Big Spending Cuts Would Cause 'Depression,' Contrary To Tea Party Activists
Romney Argues Big Spending Cuts Would Cause 'Depression,' Contrary To Tea Party Activists
Romney, however, said that pushing drastic spending cuts during shaky economic times is a prescription for "recession or depression."
"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.