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New York Times On McCain Economics: No You Can't
John McCain and his shadow army of "Nobel laureate economists" may be of the belief that the GOP nominee's economic plans - which the nominee himself can't seem to provide a straight answer on when pressed - will be the cure for what ails a staggering economy, but the New York Times' Robert Pear threw a wet blanket all over McCain's grand design today, bluntly stating: "The package of spending and tax cuts proposed by Senator John McCain is unlikely to achieve his goal of balancing the federal budget by 2013, economists and fiscal experts said Monday."
It's not the first time that McCain, who famously admitted that "the issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should" has run afoul of those who do possess that understanding. During the primary season, there was nary an economist to be found that was willing to put their name to the notion that the "gas tax holiday" the candidate supported made even a lick of sense. Similarly, an attempt by The Huffington Post's Sam Stein to find anyone with real-world expertise to agree with the Arizona Senator that his plan to resolve rising gas prices with offshore drilling was sound proved to be "impossible."
In addition to noting the unlikelihood of McCain balancing the budget, Pear uncovered flaws in numerous other facets of McCain's strategy. Pear found McCain's commitment to "hold overall spending growth to 2.4 percent a year" to be a "tall order because federal spending has been growing an average of more than 6 percent a year in the last five years." As far as McCain's claim that money could be saved through a ruthless war on earmarks, Pear noted that the savings would be minuscule: "The Bush White House says earmarks this year total $17 billion, a comparatively small share of a $2.9 trillion budget." And McCain's lack of a plan for how to "slow the growth of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid," was also highlighted.
Pear wasn't alone in pointing out the flaws in McCain's rosy economic projections and plans:
Matt Yglesias, on McCain's Iraq "Victory Savings Plan":
When you're talking about budgetary savings, you need to be talking compared to some baseline. So in this case while it's true that securing some undefined victory through undefined methods at an unknown future date would be cheaper than continuing precisely as is forever, that this "endless war" scenario doesn't exist in any of the standard budget projections.
There aren't, in short, any real savings to be achieved here -- only a large question mark as to how much additional deficit spending will take place. McCain, despite a certain amount of flim-flam last week to the contrary, is still the candidate who'll spend more in Iraq over a longer period of time than will the alternative candidate for the presidency.
Ezra Klein, responding to an article by Mike Allen in The Politico, "McCain Promises to Balance Budget.":
"Overhauling" is a weasel word. So, in this context, is "reform." If you are going to balance the budget by doing something to entitlement programs, you are going to do one of two things: Raise the payroll tax, or cut the programs. In other words, the accurate headline for this piece would read "McCain Promises to Cut Social Security And Medicare Or Drastically Raise The Payroll Tax." If enough pieces like that were written, McCain would have to explain which of those he intends to do. As of yet, he's been able to dodge the question, saying repeatedly that he'll "talk' to Congress. But Congress won't cut Social Security or Medicare. So is McCain promising a massive payroll tax increase? Or is he just spouting platitudes? It's an interesting question, and it actually has an answer. But in order to get that answer, reporters will need to aggressively explain McCain's plan: Cut Social Security and Medicare. Or pass a huge tax increase. Those are his only two options. And the legendary straight talker should be able to explain which he favors.
And, as ThinkProgress pointed out today, nobody in the McCain camp seems to be able to keep their budget-balancing story straight:
Yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) pledged to balance the federal budget by 2013. "John McCain will balance the budget by the end of his first term," a McCain economic plan stated. Top economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin confirmed these plans yesterday to the New York Times, stating that McCain's "plan is to balance the budget by the end of his first term in 2013."
But on the same day, Holtz-Eakin flip-flopped on this pledge, lowering the bar for McCain by stating that the senator "has always" pledged to balance the budget by the end of his second term.
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July 8, 2008 05:17 PM