Quote of the day

Move over, Paul Krugman -- RNC Chair Michael Steele has some rather radical thoughts on the economy.

Published February 24, 2009 12:00AM (EST)

Here's Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, talking with Fox News' Neil Cavuto Monday:

I mean, we have watched over a trillion dollars worth of cash flow into this economy, into the system. The market response to that has been obvious. It's not -- it's not pulling the triggers that need to be pulled. And now we're talking about new spending.

I listened to a significant portion of the president's summit just now, and, again, you're not talking about keeping things steady so that small-business owners can get back in the game, so they can make that investment and take those risks. And the way you begin to do that, I think the appropriate signals to send is the state -- the state and the federal government will spend no more money. Let us just go with what we got, let it sink in and move forward.

But, you know, this new spend is just an amazing amount of cash, and the inflationary effect, the deflationary effect, all of those things are going to come to head at some point, Neil.

Inflationary effects and deflationary effects coming to a head? That seemed odd, at best, so I went and grabbed video to be sure the quote hadn't been garbled in transcription -- sure enough, though, that's what Steele said.


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

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