In an interview with Fareed Zakaria that aired over the weekend, George Soros predicted that if Mitt Romney becomes president, he’ll pursue an economic stimulus plan:
George Soros: … the Republicans don’t want to face elections where Obama can claim to have sort of seen the economy recover. So they will continue to push for austerity, no new taxes, and therefore cutting of services, which will depress economic activity and employment.
After the elections, if the Republicans win, actually they’ll undergo a miraculous transformation where they discover that actually it wouldn’t be so bad if maybe we can afford to have some stimulus.
Fareed Zakaria: So you think Mitt Romney, if elected would pursue a stimulus bill?
George Soros: I’m pretty sure that would happen….
I really, really don’t think so. My gut tells me that Soros is wrong and David Frum’s gloss on the speech Grover Norquist gave at CPAC last week is correct:
Norquist: Romney Will Do As Told
… In his charmingly blunt way, Norquist articulated out loud a case for Mitt Romney that you hear only whispered by other major conservative leaders.
They have reconciled themselves to a Romney candidacy because they see Romney as essentially a weak and passive president who will concede leadership to congressional conservatives….
The requirement for president?
Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.
The principal piece of “legislation that has already been prepared,” and that Romney would rubber-stamp, is, according to Norquist, the Paul Ryan budget.
I find that entirely plausible. It exactly matches the M.O. of all the GOP governors who got elected in 2010: Get in and start enacting the agenda before the voters know what hit them. (And, yes, I know that doing this got most of the Teabag Year Zero governors into trouble with the voters, but I’m not sure their demise is guaranteed, and I’m not sure they care in any case. I’m sure the Kochs and their allies will take care of all of them if they get big chunks of the wingnut agenda enacted and then lose office via electoral defeat or recall.)
Many of us assume, like Soros, that the Republicans know they’re destroying the economy through legislative intransigence. I’m not so sure. I think a lot of them by now have actually drunk the Rand/Laffer Kool-Aid and think tax cuts will unleash economic nirvana. I think some sincerely believe that if budget cuts hurt ordinary people, screw ’em — they should sink or swim in a Randian world. And then there’s Romney, who is just, well, pliable.
If he’s the nominee, I worry that voters in the middle (and, for that matter, some on the left) will come to the same general conclusion as Soros. But we can’t run that risk. Just to be on the safe side, we have to assume that Norquist is right.
(X-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.)
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UPDATE: See also “Mitt Romney Tells CPAC He’ll Cut Social Security Benefits, Begin Privatizing Medicare,” at Crooks and Liars.
Steve:
I think you are right. But one wonders what would make Soros think this way? Is it because Bush passed that weak tax-cut stimulus on his way out the door?
I have to agree with Soros here. In fact, during the glumness of July and August I actually was wishing Romney would win and then the GOP would agree to stimulus and America would finally get on the right track.
If Romney becomes president suddenly all the KoolAid drinking Republicans will agree with whatever agenda comes down from the top. There’ll be a few numbnuts hanging on, sure, but with Dem votes another stimulus would pass in a heartbeat.
Romney will want two terms, you see, and he knows enough to realize deficit cutting during a downturn (which is the only way he’ll get elected, if the economy turns down again) will equal economic disaster and thus, his one term presidency. So they’ll find a way to enact stimulus without calling it that, Norquist and his bathtub be damned.
This is the part hat makes it obvious Soros is wrong: the above quote describes exactly what they had in Bush II, and hey want all that power back. Romney is a vain little man who will do or say anything to be president, but he can’t even buy himself the nomination…he’ll do whatever they/norquist tell him in return for pushing him over the top.
If Romney does win, they will also take the Senate and retain the House. They will end SS, Medicare, food stamps, and all social programs. They will enact the Ryan Budget (see last sentence), and will cut taxes for the rich. They will enact a flat tax, which will be an increase in taxes on the middle class.
Soros has lost his mind. Romney will have no control over congress.
So you are saying enough Democrats will sign on? After all, there would still likely be at least 41 Democrats in the Senate. So, either a few Democrats will vote for it, dooming the party, or else the GOP would get rid of the filibuster.
I don’t think you can filibuster a budget.
It is Republican dogma that tax cuts are stimulative. So how’s that gonna work? Demand is weakened, not strengthened. How long do you think it will take them to recognize the error…well they’ve had 4 years and still have no clue.
4 years? Since reagan, and that is 32 years, this has been the law, and it never works. THis is received wisdom, and cannot be questioned.
I have no idea which one of them is correct. I hope never to be in a position to find out.
Like Soros, and maybe because of my age, it’s just plain hard for me to grasp that the older Rep party isn’t hiding somewhere in the weeds waiting to bring some of the old time common sense back to the Party’s deliberations.
But George and I are wrong and Frum is right. Bush’s weakness set the stage for the Cheney/Rove crew to move in and now, following, we have two decidedly weak, if not weak minded, GOP candidates who would certainly be pliable to a pack of puppeteers.
Of course both Mitt and Rick are so weak that it would be problematic to keep them propped up for 4 years as heroes of the movement to keep the country in line.
It’s not as if we’re going to have to spend the next nine months just speculating about this. This is going to be a fundamental question in the general election campaign, and if Romney can’t pick one clear answer and stick with it, he’s going to be toast anyway.
If he even gets the nomination. But if he does, I don’t see how he’s going to avoid having to answer questions like: Governor Romney, if you were President, are there any circumstances whatsoever under which you would be will to sign a tax increase? Both Grover Norquist and Barack Obama are going to be demanding an answer on that one.
I think you are right that N is right.
Or close enough so that there should be no comfort in hopes for even moderation, much less economic sanity, from Mitt.
Like N, the plutocracy would prefer no recovery than one that is demand-led and strong enough so that the employees of America aren’t forced back to work at too great a loss in their standard of living.
And that is exactly contrary to the preference of progressives for a strong recovery driven by working class demand fueled by tax cuts at the low end and massive federal job-creating spending paid for in part by borrowing and in part by immediate and large tax hikes at the upper end.
We want a recover that will save and even raise the working class and ordinary people of America.
They want a recovery, if at all, that will crush the working class and bring the ordinary people of America to heel.
Soros can’t believe what he’s saying here. There is plentiful evidence from the current GOP Congress, from Romney, and from Norquist, Rove and other sociopathic “leaders” who drive the conservative agenda that these irresponsible people will not moderate their agenda, damn reality.
#1 item of evidence: Romney fully, publicly supports the 2011 Ryan/House budget, with its insane tax cuts for the rich, evisceration of Medicare, and its failure to balance the budget, even under their own bullshit budget calculations, until 2021.
I agree that there are many Republican electeds who believe the magic pony of permanent economic growth and GOP hegemony will take place if they are able to make the Randian fantasy real, the faster the better. I also believe that, underneath their rhetoric, many of them do understand that lots of Americans will be hurt by this agenda, but they view that as a feature, not a bug. They appear to want “those people” to suffer; they actually get excited by the prospect. Again, there is lots of evidence to support this sickening conclusion. I wish these electeds were more mature than their base voters, but my eyes and ears are not decieving me.
Cognitive dissonance is not a problem for today’s standard GOP supporter.
This is why a right-wing media is so critically important. (That is, our mainstream media in its totality.)