Rich Lowry Schools Eleanor Clift: This Is a 'Flat Out Tax and Spend Big Government Liberal Budget'

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift on PBS's McLaughlin Group Friday voiced predictable praise for President Obama's just released budget claiming you can't "drastically cut a deficit before you invigorate the economy or you’re going to look at a lost decade."

National Review's Rich Lowry quickly refuted this nonsense telling his progressive co-panelist, "This isn’t a Keynesian budget. It’s a flat out tax and spend big government liberal budget” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

When Clift got her chance to speak on this issue, she said, "This is a budget that is not going to pass because the Republicans wouldn’t pass anything he proposes anyway. It is a setting out of a particular vision, and that vision is that you can’t drastically cut a deficit before you invigorate the economy or you’re going to look at a lost decade."

She continued, "So he has his priorities right. He brings the deficit down over the long term and he puts a critical investment [in place?].

At that point, Lowry injected some much-needed sanity into the discussion saying, “A classic Keynesian believes you spend in a recession and then you cut when times are better. This is ten years when growth is assumed to be pretty healthy, but spending at the end of it will be at 23 percent of GDP."

He correctly concluded, "This isn’t a Keynesian budget. It’s a flat out tax and spend big government liberal budget.”

Clift replied, “That’s flat out Republican rhetoric.”

Is it?

Here's the relevant chart from Obama's budget proposal:

Not surprisingly, Lowry was quite correct about assumptions of healthy economic growth.

The Administration predicts the Gross Domestic Product will rise 4.2 percent in 2012, 4.7 percent in 2013, 5.0 percent in 2014, 6.0 percent in 2015, and 6.0 percent in 2016.

Despite the economy supposedly booming, spending continues to increase each and every year rising a staggering 62 percent by 2022 while adding $10.5 trillion to the national debt.

As such, suggesting this is Keynesian is a slight to Keynesians the world over.

Nice job calling her on it, Rich! Bravo!

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