Trump the Keynesian causes Libertarian Heads to Explode

Right here. Except this libertarian idiot connects Keynesianism to Herbert Hoover, which demonstrates, if nothing else, how libertarians never seem to get anything right.

Apparently Trump did an interview recently where he said this:

“Mr. Trump himself said in a telephone interview last week that he believed more borrowing and spending would help lift economic growth, a departure from traditional Republican economics.

‘It’s called priming the pump,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘Sometimes you have to do that a little bit to get things going. We have no choice — otherwise, we are going to die on the vine.’”
Nelson D. Schwartz, “Clinton? Trump? Either Way, Count on Deficit Spending to Rise,” New York Times July 31, 2016.

I can’t track this interview down, and would be interested to see what he actually said in full.

If true, it would not be surprising, since in Chapter 12 of Trump’s book Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (New York, 2015), even if supposedly largely ghostwritten, we find passages praising infrastructure projects as a way to create jobs and even invoking the Keynesian multiplier and the positive effects of such infrastructure stimulus on private sector economic activity. “If we do what we have to do correctly,” we read, “we can create the biggest economic boom in this country since the New Deal when our vast infrastructure was first put into place.” There are hints that deficit-financed spending is envisaged as the way to pay for this.

I like what I’m hearing, Donald.

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Lord Keynes @Lord_Keynes2
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