Mitt Romney has been discovered contradicting himself and his past positions on too many occasions to count. The newest discovery in the paper trail of flip-flops is what Romney said about the need for a stimulus.
In the latest Rewrite on The Last Word, Lawrence O’Donnell described how, in four years alone, Romney “has talked his way from being a classical Keynesian to a Communist.”
In 2008 when the economy fell off the cliff in the months after the presidential election, Mitt Romney thought something had to be done ASAP. Even though we had a lame duck president, George W. Bush, and a lame duck Congress, Mitt Romney thought our economic situation was so dire that we needed action from Washington.
On December 19th, 2008, in an op-ed for The National Review, he wrote, “What is Washington waiting for? The inauguration is less than five weeks away: At the rate we’ve been going, another 500,000 jobs will be lost by then… Congress and the president must act now.”
Romney closed his piece with this dramatic order for Congress, especially Republicans in Congress. “The Democrats may want to wait for Obama, but the country needs action now. Republicans can — and must — play an important role in shaping a stimulus bill that makes sense for America and lays a foundation for future prosperity and growth.” He’s singing a different tune now. According to Romney now, “a stimulus approach has not worked. The idea of item by item, looking for a quick solution and throwing gasoline on the fire — that hasn’t worked. The first stimulus of almost $800 billion didn’t create private sector jobs….The president needs to put aside all these stimulus plans, and instead work to restructure the foundation of America’s economy.” To O’Donnell, the “restructure the foundation of America’s economy” is a “purely Communist idea.”
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