Addressing the United Negro College Fund back in 1991, Vice President Dan Quayle declared, "What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is." Especially true, it turns out, of his son Ben. As he showed in discussing the economy in a new campaign video, the frequent contributor at Dirty Scottsdale turned Arizona Republican Congressional candidate apparently never had a mind to lose.
Regarding the GOP's so-called "Pledge to America," President Obama on Monday mocked Republicans, arguing, "They propose $4 trillion worth of tax cuts and $16 billion in spending cuts and then they say we're going to magically balance the budget," adding, "That's not a serious approach."
Of course, lying is one thing, stupidity is another. And that's where Ben Quayle comes in.
As ThinkProgress reported, Quayle released a video last week blasting the federal government for "loading massive debt on the backs of Americans so the politicians can keep spending money on their agenda." In it, he demonstrated a fundamental ignorance of the basics of the U.S. budget and economy that goes far beyond his father's warning that "verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things":

"Numbers can be boring, but every American can and must understand the numbers I'm about to describe. In the thirty years between 1978 and 2008, our nation faced and met every peril of war, recession, crime, and other foreign and domestic difficulty. Across those three decades, government spending as a share of GDP, or gross domestic product, varied between 32 percent and 37 percent. Today, just two years after Barack Obama was elected president, government share of GDP in America is 44 percent. Government in America is today spending well over 14.5 trillion dollars a year."

Sadly, no. Again, as ThinkProgress documented:

The problem with Quayle's video is that it appears that even Quayle himself doesn't "understand the numbers" he describes. The last budget signed into law by President Obama laid out a $3.5 trillion budget for the federal government -- nowhere near the $14.5 trillion Quayle claims is being spent. Current US GDP hovers slightly above $14.6 trillion, meaning that, for the government to be spending 44 percent of GDP, it would have to spend $6.4 trillion, almost double what it is actually spending. Perhaps Quayle thinks the US GDP is $32.9 trillion, which is what it would have to be for federal government spending to account for $14.5 trillion in spending a year and 44 percent of GDP.

It's no surprise Quayle's campaign quickly pulled the video from its web site. After all, as his father once counseled, "We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made."
And so it goes for Ben Quayle, whose only claims to fame are calling Barack Obama the "worst president in history" and posing as family values Republican with someone else's children. But when he's not pretending to be a candidate for Congress, he's online pretending to be Boogie Nights porn star Brock Landers, looking for "the hottest chick in Scottsdale."
Why? Because, as Ben's dad Dan once explained:

"Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child."