McCain's deficit: Tax cuts, plutocracy, and fiscal irresponsibility

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(h/t: The Plank)

From yesterday's NYT, a piece on the fiscal plans of the three remaining candidates:

Mr. McCain’s plan would appear to result in the biggest jump in the deficit, independent analyses based on Congressional Budget Office figures suggest. A calculation done by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington found that his tax and budget plans, if enacted as proposed, would add at least $5.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.

Fiscal monitors say it is harder to compute the effect of the Democratic candidates’ measures because they are more intricate. They estimate that, even taking into account that there are some differences between the proposals by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, the impact of either on the deficit would be less than one-third that of the McCain plan.

The centerpiece of Mr. McCain’s economic plan is a series of tax cuts that would largely benefit corporations and the wealthy. He is calling for cutting corporate taxes by $100 billion a year. Eliminating the alternative minimum tax, which was created to apply to wealthy taxpayers but now also affects some in the middle class, would reduce revenues by $60 billion annually. He also would double the exemption that can be claimed for dependents, which would cost the government $65 billion.

*****

On the expenditure side, Mr. McCain has called not only for continuing an open-ended deployment of troops in Iraq, but also for spending $15 billion annually to expand the Army and the Marine Corps and to improve health care for veterans, among other programs.

Mr. McCain’s advisers have said the new tax cuts would be paid for by eliminating earmarks and making large spending cuts, but they have not identified specifics.

*****

The McCain campaign does not figure the costs of extending the tax cuts into its deficit projections, although the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it would cost an extra $2.2 trillion over the next decade.

There's a lot here to digest, but, in brief, what do we know about McCain?

-- That he's fiscally irresponsible, Bush-style. Obama and Hillary aren't deficit hawks, to be sure, but neither one is anything like McCain, under whom the national debt would continue to swell.

-- That he's even more fiscally irresponsible than these numbers would suggest. He would entrench the Bush tax cuts, but it's not clear that he would be able to cut spending in any significant way. In addition, his warmongering would require massive military expenditures seemingly without end. I'm all in favour of improved services for U.S. troops and veterans, including health care, but the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as of the other military (mis)adventures McCain has in mind would be enormous.

-- That he's plutocratic, Bush-style. His economic policies would be focused on making the rich even richer, and at the expense, of course, of everyone else.

-- That's he irresponsible generally, Bush-style. He would, of course, saddle future generations of Americans with fiscal and economic disaster. Ultimately, debt must be paid off. Who will do that? And to whom? (McCain wants to wage Cold War II with the Chinese, it would seem, but it is the Chinese, among others who will own America. Bush has done enough damage in this respect. The situation would only get worse under McCain.

-- That he's full of shit... dangerous, supply-side shit that would irreparably harm the country he seeks to govern.

And this guy has the nerve to claim that Obama doesn't understand the economy and is "insensitive to the hopes and dreams and ambitions" of the American people (or at least those who pay capital gains tax)?

What a fool.