Pawlenty Blasts Obama on Economy

Hoping to temper his image as boring, Tim Pawlenty lashed out at President Obama’s economic policies with full force Tuesday. In his first major economic speech of the campaign, Pawlenty said, “Gas is nearly $4 a gallon. Home prices are in the gutter. Our health-care system—thanks to ‘Obamacare’—is more expensive and less efficient. Unemployment’s back over 9 percent.” He also called Obama “a champion practitioner of class warfare.” The former Minnesota governor offered several counterproposals, including sharply reducing corporate tax rates while closing loopholes and cutting the number of income tax brackets to two, with the top bracket being taxed at 25 percent. He also called for a “Google Test,” in which any service available online would no longer be offered by the federal government, including the postal service and government printing office—although some pundits are already deriding his 5 percent growth-rate target as unrealistic.