March 9, 2008
Column: McCain’s muddled math
In a new column for National Journal I argue that John MCain’s fiscal arithmetic does not add up.
Not long ago John McCain was almost boasting that he knew little about economics. That kind of candor, a distinctive McCain trait, is likable but has its limits. His days of making jokes about his ignorance appear to be over. Worries about the economy began to dominate public opinion even before the current slowdown was properly under way.
Between now and November, those worries will only mount: The faltering economy is likely to get worse before it gets better. McCain is going to need an economic program, and he had better get used to talking about this subject as though it matters.
He obviously understands that — but his recent statements and interviews suggest that he still has a lot of work to do. McCain is running as an orthodox fiscal conservative, with heavy stress on low taxes and tight control of public spending. He is pro-trade. He has modified, but not dropped, his support for personal retirement accounts alongside Social Security. On health care, he has a bunch of proposals for better cost control, but no plan that would deserve to be called comprehensive reform. And he is for stronger action on global warming: He aims to curb greenhouse gases with a cap-and-trade system that would oblige emitters to buy licenses for the privilege.
Stated that baldly, the platform looks all right. I think that the lack of any grander ambition on health care is a pity on the merits and a political mistake as well, but as for the rest, each element has plenty to recommend it. The problem is that the fiscal conservative core of the program, as it stands, is just not credible. McCain is promising to extend the Bush administration’s tax cuts — and cut some more. He is also promising to reduce and then eliminate the budget deficit. To do both of those things, McCain would need to make correspondingly savage cuts in spending, and he has not come close to saying how.
You can read the rest of the article here (link expires at the end of the week).
I am no economist, but wouldn’t it also cost more than a few dollars to keep the US in Iraq for a hundred years, as McCain has suggested, as well as to maintain the bloated world-wide military empire that McCain wants to waste even more hundreds of billions of dollars in supporting and expanding? How’s that for an “earmark”?
McCain also has some explaining to do about non-economic issues, such as how his stand against torture squares with his acceptance of an endorsement from President Bush, who has just vetoed the anti-torture bill. He will also need to do even more explaining about his backtracking on immigration, where he has already caved in to anti-Latino racists by abandoning his support of “legalization” for illegal immigrants, and other vital reforms, until the Mexicam border is “secured”, i.e. probably around the same time that our troops come home from Iraq some time in the next century.
Unfortunately, as long as Hillary Clinton keeps throwing the kitchen sink at Senator Obama, especially at 3:00 am, there is not likely to be much media focus on the glaring contradictions in McCain’s positions on any of these or other issues.
Posted by: algasema | March 9th, 2008 at 5:50 pm | Report this comment