Posted on 05/01/2008 3:34:51 AM PDT by decimon
WASHINGTON - Republican John McCain is making promises that would cost billions of taxpayer dollars, yet he is vague about how he would pay for them.
McCain is handing around a campaign grab bag of goodies. There are little treats like a summer gas-tax holiday and new mortgages for struggling homeowners, and there are big plums like tax breaks for corporations and families with children.
The expected GOP presidential nominee has nothing on the Democrats. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama would spend billions of dollars themselves on things like paid family leave, universal health insurance and preschool for kids.
The difference? Unlike the Democrats, McCain has made a career of trying to cut spending. He rails against spending in nearly every speech. McCain gets laughs by singling out silly sounding projects like a federal DNA study of bears in Montana: "I don't know if that was a paternity issue or a criminal issue."
And he gets attention when he says it was spending, not the war in Iraq, that cost Republicans their control of Congress in 2006.
"The reason why we lost that election, my dear friends, was because we let spending get out of control," he said recently. "We came to power in 1994 to change government, and government changed us."
Now McCain is promising ambitious cuts in spending to pay for his ideas. The cuts would not pay for all his promises, but McCain says they needn't.
"I strongly disagree with the view that just because you reduce the tax burden, just because you let people save and invest more of their money, that therefore there's less money that goes into government," he told reporters last week in Alabama.
McCain said he is not exactly a supply-sider — someone who subscribes to the idea that some tax cuts can pay for themselves by encouraging economic growth. But he certainly leans that way.
"I believe there's more money, because of the increase in economic activity and growth," he said.
Regardless of who wins the November election, it is vital to find a way to pay for new spending or tax cuts, because the next president will face a budget deficit of more than $400 billion. And the deficit will keep mounting as baby boomer retirements swell Social Security and Medicare.
McCain has pledged to balance the federal budget, although he has backed off an earlier promise to do so in his first term and now says he would do it within eight years.
McCain's tax cuts would be double the size of President Bush's:
_First, he wants to extend Bush's tax cuts, which cost an estimated $228 billion annually and are set to expire after next year, according to congressional analysts.
_On top of that, he seeks new tax cuts of about $225 billion a year, according to his own estimate. He would slash the corporate tax rate, eliminate the alternative minimum tax and double the tax exemption for dependent children.
_And the cost of his tax breaks could rise even higher. McCain has proposed two business tax breaks, a credit for research and first-year expensing of equipment; his campaign says they essentially would cost nothing, but the Treasury Department has estimated they could cost more than $140 billion annually.
Those are just the tax cuts. McCain also proposed a new mortgage refinancing program for struggling homeowners that could cost the government $3 billion to $10 billion. He proposed to suspend federal gas taxes for the summer months at a cost of $8 billion to $10 billion.
And McCain has several proposals whose costs are unknown, such as his pledge to give all veterans a plastic card to get medical treatment anywhere they choose, a new student loan program and tax write-offs for companies that provide Internet service to rural areas.
How would he pay for it? New user fees could pay for the gas-tax holiday, McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin said.
Ironically, McCain said those kinds of fees were essentially tax increases when former rival Mitt Romney imposed them on businesses as governor of Massachusetts. Yet McCain has said he doesn't want to raise taxes.
McCain also has sketched out ideas for covering the costs of his $225 billion in new tax cuts, saying he would cut spending, eliminate corporate tax loopholes and spark economic growth by that amount of money.
Yet for all the numbers he has provided, McCain has been reluctant to say exactly which programs he would cut.
He criticizes "earmarks," pet projects tucked into spending bills, like the bear study. He said Wednesday that the bridge collapse in Minnesota last year would not have happened if Congress had not wasted so much money on pork-barrel spending, despite the suspicion of federal investigators that the problem may have been design-related, not spending-related.
Even the earmarks he rails against include things he supports, such as aid to Israel. Last month, after McCain promised to eliminate all earmarks as part of his economic plan, his campaign said he remains committed to aid for Israel.
Thus, the reality of cutting spending may be very different from rhetoric, as McCain has found time and again.
On a swing through Alabama's rural Black Belt last week, McCain rode a ferry boat from tiny Gee's Bend, a town once cut off from ferry service to keep black residents from crossing the Alabama River to push for civil rights.
McCain rode across the river with several elderly black women, quilt makers from Gee's Bend, who sang gospel hymns and held his hands. McCain even took a turn driving the ferry just before it docked.
The ferry came into existence with $3 million in earmarks — the kind of spending McCain says he would stop.
McCain insisted he is not trying to have it both ways. The ferry spending was worthy and would have been eligible for other federal dollars, he told reporters.
"America is supposed to help people in rural settings, people like the quilters who are direct descendants of slaves," McCain said. "It's 'give people a hand up.' That's the essence of government."
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EDITOR'S NOTE — Libby Quaid covers the presidential campaign for The Associated Press.
Un huh....the treat. Only problem is....
what’s the trick ...and when does it kick in?
I’m all for the feds lifting their tax on gas. Only thing is, it should be a permanent “treat”. The federal government has no business taxing the hell out of every gallon of gas purchased. They already get more than enouogh of our tax money as it is. Much more than they need (or should need).
I don’t trust McCain or what he says he’ll do, but I also don’t trust Bush any more.
This sucks.
You forgot to mention the Environmental Impact study to determine the harm to the environment from taking the pea out of the garden.
And a Blue Ribbon Panel to determine whether a pea or bean would be better utilized.
The Blue Ribbon Panel would then give its recommendation, aka "Give Peas a Chance", to a Congressional Inquiry panel to determine why Big Pea was making such an exorbitant amount of money selling its peas to the government.
And a Senate Panel would then investigate whether there should be a Pea Subsidy program.
Following that, another panel would take the results of the House and Senate inquiries and reach a compromise position whereby the government would establish a Pea Board to oversee pea production, processing and distribution.
Congress would then establish a Pea Board Oversight Committee to annually assess the activities of the Pea Board.
Then the Pea Board Oversight Committee would report to Congress on how much more money the Pea Board would need in next year's budget to meet their needs. With additional funds to the Pea Board Oversight Committee for their increased responsibility.
“Because the alternative will be that much worse.”
And as usual, that’s not much of a choice. In fact....
it’s no choice at all, IMO.
The Pandering Express on full tilt.
His “new mortgages for home buyers” plan sure smells like a government spending program to me.
Where oh where have the McQueeg supporters gone?
Oh where, oh where can they be?
Up is down....
They're busy right now, revising their desperation talking point lists of why McCain is still the right candidate for POTUS. (v4.0)
He’s not the Candidate we wanted (Does such actually exist today?), but he’s the one we have. Unless you think the Holy Messiah Obama can do a better job...
Romney was too mormon, Fred was too old, Huckabee too Christian, etc,etc,etc...
McCain's got the nomination. Okay.
Now we MUST elect Republicans to Congress in order to control him.
tax cuts are NOT spending, Ms. Quaid. Liberals are so weird.
You had that Congress but no Pub leader to smack the crap out of them when they overspent their Federal Credit Cards. Bush could have been that leader but wasn't.
One thing we can give Bush is this: 9/11 was never repeated thanks to him.
We can also give him this: He spent more of our hard earned money than any President since Lyndon Johnson. He REFUSED to enforce U.S. immigration laws, to prevent illegal immigration, or to secure U.S. borders, and he thus made the illegal immigrant problem much worse. He increased the size, reach, and appetite of the Frankenstein's monster known as the Federal Government, thus eroding more and more of our liberty. He increased entitlements with his ridiculous prescription drug massive giveaway--of our money. He handed Congress to the Democrats on a silver platter in 2006. He paved the way for a Democrat takeover of Congress and the Presidency in 2008.
I agree that it's hard to imagine--but a Democrat President would have been--and will be if elected--MUCH, MUCH WORSE! We must keep reminding ourselves of this.
Unless you’re unbelievably stupid, you should be over the idea that we’re going to have anything other than big spending Presidents from now until it all falls apart.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people disregard this fundamental truth.
Well then, Atlas, shrug!
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) - First-lady wannabe Cindy McCain says she once thought her future husband John was, quote, “kind of weird.” She also told TV host Jay Leno last night the Republican presidential candidate is “not the best of drivers,” and that she does most of the driving.
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