Well, the actual article on Talking Points Memo is Gingrich: Austerity Is Wrong For America, We Need Pro-Growth Policies Instead. This is the quote from Meet The Press.
“First of all, David, I don’t think you’ll ever find me talking about an age of austerity. I don’t think that’s the right solution,” Gingrich said. “I am a pro-growth Republican. I’m a pro-growth conservative. I think the answer is to grow the economy, not to punish the American people with austerity.”
He didn’t point out that corporations are sitting on wads of cash, so that there was no need to lower their taxes.
He didn’t point out that everyone is so nervous about the future that they are not buying as much as they should to grow the economy. So the government has to step in and buy now what it will eventually have to buy some time in the future anyway. The American Society of Civil Engineers in its 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure estimates that we need to spend $2.2 trillion dollars over the next 5 years repairing our infrastructure just to prevent it from failing.
He didn’t mention that people with underwater mortgages do not dare spend as much as they could and they so not have the mobility to move where the jobs are. There needs to be a government program to write down some of the principal on their mortgages to free up a lot of pro-growth energy.
He didn’t mention that the need to provide health insurance to employees is a roadblock for increased hiring from small companies. A government funded, single-payer health care system will unleash tremendous economic growth from small business.
He didn’t mention that the very wealthy are sitting on trillions of dollars that they are afraid to invest. They now take the lazy way out by lending it back to the government so that they can at least earn interest on it. Taxing some of this money away would lower the deficit and encourage growth by putting the money to work.
However, now that his true pro-growth bias is beginning to emerge, can the above statements be far behind?