As you’ve all heard, Nancy Pelosi defended contraception funding in the Democrats’ stimulus bill over the weekend. Abortion cuts costs:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Hundreds of millions of dollars to expand family planning services. How is that stimulus?

PELOSI: Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no apologies for that?

PELOSI: No apologies. No. We have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

Up next: Emergency funding for suicide manuals and euthanasia education.

We have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy.

***

Greg Pollowitz includes a fuller portion of the transcript and points out more San Fran Nan Pelosi whoppers:

PELOSI: No apologies. No. we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy. Food stamps, unemployment insurance, some of the initiatives you just mentioned. What the economists have told us from right to left: There is more bang for the buck, a term they use, by investing in food stamps and in unemployment insurance than in any tax cut.

Nonetheless, we are committed to the tax cuts because they do have a positive impact on the economy, even though not as big as the investments.

And here’s what Stephanopoulos asked next:

STEPHANOPOULOS: The crisis in America’s financial institutions is not abating, either. And administration officials have signaled that they might need billions more from the Congress to direct to the banks. Are you open to that?

So Stephanopoulos lets two whoppers from Pelosi fly right on by: One, there’s no follow-up question as to how having fewer children—fewer workers, fewer taxpayers—would be good for the U.S. economy in the long term. Two, Pelosi in the course of two sentences totally flips on her view on tax cuts. Stephanopoulos should have asked, “Nancy, if you and your mystery economists ‘from right to left’ really think there is more ‘bang for the buck’ with government spending than with tax cuts, then why have the tax cuts at all?”

***

Jan. 23: “How you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives – how does that stimulate the economy?”