McCain considering Phil "You're All Whiners" Gramm for Cabinet post

Well that didn't take long.

But associates say the senator still dials up former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, who forfeited his title of campaign co-chairman after a controversy over his remarks that the United States is “a nation of whiners” and is merely in “a mental recession.”

Current and former advisers say they still consider Mr. Gramm, now UBS investment bank vice chairman, a top prospect for treasury secretary in a McCain administration.

Let's take a walk through memory lane:

Phil Gramm recently said that America is a “nation of whiners” going through a “mental recession.”

"‘You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,’ he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices... ‘We have sort of become a nation of whiners,’ he said.”

John McCain thinks the challenges facing our families are “psychological" - gee that sounds an awful lot like Phil Gramm. At a town hall in Florida McCain said of economic challenges facing American families “A lot of this is psychological. A lot of it’s psychological. Because I believe the fundamentals of our economy is still strong.”

More evidence of Gramm's influence - McCain thinks Americans are “better off” economically than they were eight years ago. At a January 30th CNN debate during the Republican primary John McCain was asked if he thought "Are Americans better off than they were eight years ago?" He responded:

"I think you could argue that Americans overall are better off, because we have had a pretty good prosperous time, with low unemployment and low inflation and a lot of good things have happened. A lot of jobs have been created… I think we are better off overall if you look at the entire eight-year period, when you look at the millions of jobs that have been created, the improvement in the economy, et cetera.”