From this week's Fox News Sunday, Karl Rove, who ought to be sitting in a jail cell rather than running Super PAC's and yelling at Juan Williams on television, was terribly upset when Williams dared to tell the truth about Mitt Romney's economic plan. Rove can protest all he wants, but it doesn't change the fact that, as Jon Perr has written about here, his plan is just more tax cuts for the wealthy, bigger debt and he does want to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and then some.
Jon's written extensively on this already at C&L and his own blog, Perrspectives, and I'll just refer the readers here to a couple of his most recent posts:
Mitt Romney is Running for Bush's Third Term
And Jon has repeatedly noted, Romney's policies are not just a return to what we saw under George W. Bush, it's his plans on steroids. Rove apparently believes the country has collective amnesia is he thinks no one remembers what he and his former boss did to the country's economy. I hate to break it to Rove, but about two-thirds of the country still blame Bush for the weak U.S. economy. I'm sure a good deal of the one third that don't are Fox viewers or listen to right-wing hate talk.
Transcript of their remarks via Fox:
WALLACE: Juan.
WILLIAMS: Well, I think that all the Romney advisers say he's got to put more meat on the bone. But I thought that this speech this week was a good speech...
WALLACE: You're talking about the president.
WILLIAMS: The president's speech in terms of framing the alternative and saying very clearly -- this picks up on what you said in introducing this, Chris, that if you ask Mitt Romney about what are your ideas for making this economy take off, Mr. Romney? He says, more tax cuts, personal tax cuts, corporate tax cuts, oil drilling and gas exploration, especially XL pipeline which produce about I think 6,000 jobs that is the not going to turn around the American job scene.
So these are his ideas. And then you say, and how are you going to pay for these tax cuts? He doesn't say it. He doesn't lay it out. He doesn't say here's exactly the programs that I would cut, instead he embraces the Paul Ryan plan and that puts in place fears that many people that have that in fact he would disassemble Medicare and Medicaid.
This is dangerous stuff. And I think if the president pursues that aggressively then he has a chance to create and define Mitt Romney early and not make this a referendum on Barack Obama's performance, but make it a contest in which people say, you know what, the alternative is unacceptable.
WALLACE: Karl, I'm worried that you're shaking your head so vigorously it's going to spin right off.
ROVE: Juan needs to make up his mind. Either Romney is not laying out a plan, or he's laid out a plan that's similar to the House Republican budget that does all kinds of bad things. Make up your mind.
Romney has a plan that reduces the deficit. Romney has laid out a framework for tax reform, not tax cuts. He said I want to lower the rates and pay for it by getting rid of deductions and unnecessary preferences in the law.
WILLIAMS: He wants to make it permanent.
ROVE: You know what, no he doesn't. What he want to do is pass tax reform. Pay attention. You know you sound like Obama. I'm giving you an honest presentation of what he is proposing. And then went on and did not say a single honest word about what Romney was proposing.
WILLIAMS: And you're so honest and saying, oh he's all about deficit reduction when he doesn't say exactly...
ROVE: Wait a minute, wait a minute, Juan, make up your mind. He's endorsed that terrible House budget which reduces the deficit according to the Congressional Budget Office.
WILLIAMS: No, it doesn't.
ROVE: Yes, it does Juan.
WILLIAMS: It doesn't reduce anything. It doesn't say, Karl, where I would make cuts in order to reduce...
ROVE: Yes, it does. It says for example will slow the future growth of Medicare spending for $450 billion here to $600 billion here.
WILLIAMS: You need to read.
ROVE: I read it, my friend.
WILLIAMS: Oh, stop.
ROVE: I read it.
Be happy to send you a copy of it. I will get it autographed by Paul Ryan.
WALLACE: All right.
