In a statement Tuesday, Mitt Romney, GOP presidential frontrunner and billionaire-man-of-the-people-who-pays-a-15-percent-income-tax-rate, promised to “RESTORE FISCAL SANITY TO WASHINGTON.”

To our pop-culture ears, this sounded an awful lot like Jon Stewart’s 2010 “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.”

For those who have forgotten all about the Rally to Restore Sanity — and who can blame you — here is a recap of Stewart’s “Moment of Sincerity,” which served to explain the rally.

“I can’t control what people think this [rally] was, I can only tell you my intentions,” Stewart said to the gathered crowd of thousands. “This was not a rally to ridicule faith or activism or look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and we have nothing to fear.

“They are, and we do.

“But we live now in hard times, not end times. [W]e can have animus and not be enemies,” Stewart declared with confidence.

Perhaps this is true, but maybe not during an election year?

We’re not sure how much “fiscal sanity” Romney’s pledge will restore. But fear? It offers plenty of fear.

For example, the pledge begins: “The fiscal catastrophe facing much of Europe is a stark warning of what lies ahead if [President] Barack Obama gets four more years to move us toward a European-style welfare state.

“Barack Obama’s Entitlement Society is rapidly consuming the next generation’s resources to expand the government of today,” it continues.

And, of course, Romney promises that if he is faced with complex policy priorities, including painful questions about health care, infrastructure and cultural programs, he will ask the only question worth asking: “Is this program so critical that we should borrow money from China to pay for it?”

Be afraid, be very afraid.