He is a Keynesian who dare not speak John Maynard Keynes’s name.

Keynesians believe that pumping money into an economy in recession keeps it afloat and saves businesses from going bust and throwing people out of work. They think that if you take money out of an economy, it shrinks. They recommend waiting until an economy is booming before paying off the national debt. or cutting government programs, because cuts only make recessions worse.

Or, as Romney explained to Halperin, “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 an economic decline.”…

Though most people think slashing taxes is a conservative prescription, tax cuts to promote growth in a recession were first proposed by Keynes. Rather like health care, where Romney’s individual mandate to buy private insurance became the blueprint for Obama’s health care program. When it comes to economic policy we are looking at Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Either way, Keynes wins.