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What Will They Call the Romney Stimulus? (Part III)

One of my pet speculations for the last year has involved one certainty — a Romney administration would engage in short-term Keynesian stimulus — and one question: What will they call it? In his provocative feature on what both Obama and Romney might try to accomplish as early as January 2013, New York magazine’s Jonathan […]

One of my pet speculations for the last year has involved one certainty — a Romney administration would engage in short-term Keynesian stimulus — and one question: What will they call it?

In his provocative feature on what both Obama and Romney might try to accomplish as early as January 2013, New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait suggests that nomenclature isn’t the key point. Rather, it’s that, with Romney in the White House, Republicans could tie short-term stimulus to what they’re really after (rate reductions on the wealthy). He paints the following scenario:

A plan that increases deficits in the short run allows him to offer a political olive branch to Democrats without breaking faith with his own base. They’ve been calling for more stimulus since 2009, haven’t they? Well, here’s their chance! This was the approach Republicans used during George W. Bush’s first term to Shanghai Democrats into voting for their tax cuts. They would attach the short-term stimulative tax cuts Democrats demand (focused more on the middle class) to long-term tax cuts for the rich, and dare Democrats to mock their own constituents’ economic pain by opposing it.

This seems plausible.

To answer the question I’ve been asking all along, the Romney administration will pass a stimulus package in 2013 — and they will call it Compromise.

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