McCain's Spending Freeze Would Send Us Into the Dark Ages

With all the horrible decisions coming out of the McCain/Palin campaign, it's almost like shooting fish in a barrel (or wolves from a helicopter) to point out more failure.

But we shouldn't let McCain get a free-ride on his proposed government spending freeze. If for some fluke of a reason (2000 election, anyone?) McCain wins this thing, his proposed freeze will send us back into the Dark Ages.

During the first debate, McCain's off-the-cuff answer about fixing the ailing economy:

"How about a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs."

Some would think after a hot-headed, ill-advised statement like that, the presidential hopeful would try and distance himself -- pretend it never happened.

But instead, he fought back against Barack Obama's previous description of his vast spending freeze, in the final presidential debate saying:

"OK, what -- what would I cut? I would have, first of all, across-the-board spending freeze, OK? Some people say that's a hatchet. That's a hatchet, and then I would get out a scalpel, OK?"

No Senator McCain -- a government spending freeze of "everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs" is not OK.

Dennis Van Roekel, President of the National Education Association said:

"He still fails to grasp the direct link between a 21st century education system and a robust economy." He continued, "a No Child Left Behind funding gap of $15 billion and putting a crunch on millions of special education students, low-income students, children living in poverty and the hiring of future teachers."

McCain recently promised NASA $2 billion in funding for manned space flight, yet conveniently forgot to remind them of his hatchet.

He'll have to convince the DoD to include his Homeownership Resurgence Plan into their defense budget, because otherwise it would be axed under his spending freeze.

A majority of federal service providers like independent contractors, social workers, and those working for non-profit community organizations will become jobless. As will a ludicrous number of federal employees. ...Isn't that just about the exact opposite of FDR's New Deal, which helped end the Great Depression?

The McCain health care tax credit (ya know, the one that only buys less than half a family's insurance premium) would come out of Medicaid and Medicare, which is a cut separate from the spending freeze. But it would no longer then be an entitlement, and thus would be subject to the spending freeze.

Let's take a quick look at several other agencies and programs the McConomist plan would freeze (and this is by no means an exhaustive list):

• Executive Office of the President
  
• Interest payments on the National Debt
  
• Department of the Treasury
  
• Department of Energy
  
• Department of Agriculture / Rural Development
  
• Food and Drug Administration
  
• Department of Labor
  
• Department of the Interior
  
• Department of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development
  
• Judiciary Appropriations
  
• The Smithsonian Institutions
  
• U.S. Forest Service
  
• National Park Service
  
• Environmental Protection Agency
  
• NASA
  
• National Science Foundation
  
• National Institute of Health
  
• Small Business Administration
  
• No Child Left Behind
  
• Individuals With Disabilities Education Act
  
• American Indian Reservation funds for basic necessities and services
  
• National Wildlife Refuge system
  
• National Endowments for the Arts
  
• National Endowment for the Humanities
  
• Clean Water State Revolving Fund
  
• The National Academies (Sciences, Medicine, Engineering, Research Council)
  
• The USDA
  
• Federally-Funded Public Libraries
  

This isn't change we can believe in; it's change we can fear.

Comments

[Houndstooth]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding that his proposed spending freeze would freeze the GROWTH of these programs for a year, not freezing all spending to them - which would be completely ludicrous. Am I correct? Because this article is obviously biased and omits that crucial detail.

Freezing and cutting aren't the same thing. Freezing the growth of these programs for a time isn't so bad; eliminating funding to them for a year is another thing altogether. Times are tough - we can't expect life to have all the same conveniences it had when the economy boomed in the 90s.

[SunFresh]

Thank you for this - I have been asking, what does a government spending freeze mean to me and those that I know? Would programs that aid people be cut out?

Sure there are opportunities to review the budget and to cut out unnecessary spending. But to completely freeze it - that is a gut-based ignorant concept. I wouldn't expect much more from the GOP.

[laikalives]

Thank you for writing this article. I don't think that McCain has yet been properly taken to task for this idiotic idea. Anyone with a basic economic knowledge can see in a second how flawed this plan is. More on the topic here-

http://laikalives.blogspot.com/2008/10/mccain-spending-freeze-bad-bananas.html

[jhNY]

It should be obvious to thinking people that John McCain wants to be elected president because we owe it to him for his past suffering. But that's his entire plan and rationale for taking office. He is a superbly ungifted orator with no vison or program for governing, and his latest idea about government spending during a Depression (yep I'm calling it early) is a disaster which will probably not happen, given his standing in the polls.

Cut the fat, get the smartest people in the country together to make a plan, get everybody involved in the same room and crack heads, stay on and on in Iraq just so you don't look like you lost by coming home-- in these phrases reside every idea McCain has advanced during his quest for office, more or less. And seriously, there's not one real idea hiding in that pile.

I just don't think it's fair to single out any particualr pitiful half-thought and criticise it. They're all bad, they're all the product of a restless angry mind that belongs to a guy who can't sit still long enough to read or write anything thoughtful, being constantly distracted by the newest infamy on the horizon, even if it isn't there.

[ljmck]

McCain's repeated use of "OK?" immediately brought to mind the crazed Capt. Queeg of The Caine Mutiny ('kay?) who wanted to know who ate all the strawberries and ice cream. The Caine's captain ran over his own tow line, even as he kept rolling his little steel balls around in his hand.

So, would Caine McCaine's across-the-board cuts include funding the war in Iraq? Guantanamo? The federal bailout?

If he could just institute those cuts right now, he could include the payments he gets from the FEC!