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I realize GOP Senate candidate Ken Buck was nervous on "Meet the Press"...

... but, man, this should go down in the annals of misspeaking:

MR. GREGORY:  [H]ow do you pay for [tax cuts]?

MR. BUCK:  Well, the, the--we pay for it by cutting spending.  We also pay for it by growing government.  When we leave money in the hands of taxpayers, they buy things, they pay taxes, they grow government.  It's not a one for one exchange in the first year, but, but it would be bad, in my view--and, and I--every economist I've talked to has told me that it would be bad in a recession to try to increase taxes....

MR. GREGORY [to the Democrat incumbent, Michael Bennet]:  ... Republican leaders don't agree with what [Buck] just said, which is that you have to pay for tax cuts.  So isn't he--aren't you guys more in line, wouldn't you say?

SEN. BENNET:  Well, I didn't--I actually didn't hear him say that.  I heard him say that you pay for it, and also by growing government you pay for it. I'm not quite sure what that means.  But...

MR. BUCK:  Well, let me explain to you.  Here...

SEN. BENNET:  ...my point is, my point is...

MR. BUCK:  ...you grow government because as people have more money they spend the money and government grows.  When we put people back to work, the government grows, we increase revenue and we decrease unemployment benefits.

SEN. BENNET:  Well I'm definitely not interested in growing government, I can tell you that.

MR. BUCK:  I'm sorry, growing the economy.  I apologize.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

MR. BUCK:  Growing the economy.

MR. GREGORY:  You're talking about growing the economy.

MR. BUCK:  Right.

We have an awful lot of inexperienced public speakers out there these days, about to move into positions of great power....

Full post as published by Althouse on October 18, 2010 (boomark / email).