McCain's Fiscal Flights of Fantasy

McCain seems to think the problem with Bushonomics is that we simply need more of it. He is proposing more tax cuts, targeted at the highest ends of the economic spectrum. The bill for this comes to about $400 billion a year, or almost as big as the projected 2008 budget deficit, the largest in US history.

When asked how he would reduce this massive debt-hike, he cited "earmarks", "reducing waste" and slowing Medicare growth.

His first assumption is that all earmarks are a waste of money. I remember one report around 2000 mocking the government for funding a study on honeybees. Well, turns out that honey bees are going extinct, and their value to our agribusiness as free pollinators is estimated in the hundreds of billions per year. Not so trivial after, and money well spent IMO.

His second assumption is a cliche in politics. Everyone wants to "reduce waste", but no one can measure its size or come up with an instant plan to reduce it significantly. I'd be hard pressed to believe that he can find enough waste to save enough money to roughly fund the entire Defense Department, although much of that waste probably is within the Defense Dept.

His last assumption ignores the realities of the world. Medicare costs will accelerate as our population ages and as medical technology advance. Unless you want to tell your aging mother than she cannot have the latest breast cancer treatments because John McCain needs to pay for corporate tax cuts, medical costs will rise. Obviously, McCain has not found a way to stop the aging process, so it looks like his "savings" from Medicare will actually be even more expenditures.

McCain said not long ago that "economics is not my thing". He seems bound and determined to prove it as the US teeters into a recession of unknown depth, breadth and and length.

href="http://www.slate.com/id/2187570">McCain's Economic "Plan"