A few days ago
McCain lied to the American people, again. The question is, as usual, did he knowingly lie, or is he just that ignorant? It is a tossup, as
McCain has admitted himself that he
doesn't have a strong understanding of how the economy works:
The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should.
Of course months later
he lied (or maybe just forgot, are we dealing with chronic Alzheimer's?), saying that he never said what he was on tape saying:
Robin Roberts: "You have admitted that you're not exactly an expert when it comes to the economy..."
John McCain: "I have not. I have not. I actually have not. I said that I am stronger on national security issues because of all the time I spent in the military.
Lie, Lie, Lie, and Lie. He managed to fit 4 lies in right there, pretty amazing. He lied 3 times about not saying what he clearly said, and then lied about what he says he actually said, which is not what he said. Gotta love how this guy rolls huh? His sort of lying is really not compatible with YouTube. See
McCain, we can catch you when you lie now, this isn't like all of the lies from your Congressional career, times have changed.
But that isn't the point here. The point is that
McCain's willingness to lie to people, or his complete ignorance on how the economy works, has manifest itself again.
McCain recently claimed that he would balance the budget by 2013, the end of his first term (although other officials have backtracked on this, and said it wouldn't be until the end of his
second term). Okay, so the lie here is of course his claim, his promise, that he can and will reduce the budget deficit, ever. Can't happen. There are many obvious reasons it can't happen. First,
McCain wants to continue the Iraq war, which has greatly increased the budget deficit. He has claimed that we will have "won" (whatever that means, who knows, since he refuses to say what his definition of "winning" is) in Iraq by 2013, and thus we'll get all of these savings, and that will lead to a budget surplus:
The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.
See how that works? This is how
McCain thinks it works. Say you are an irresponsible teenager who wastes money like the he or she is Donald Trump. Say this person saves ZERO, and every year runs up an increasingly enormous credit card debt. Say this person scales back somewhat on the enormous spending, but does that mean they are now
saving? Is there magically "savings" now? No, just less spending. The debt is still there, the high interest payments are still there from all of that debt.
McCain makes it sound like after we "win" in Iraq AND Afghanistan we'll get a big cash reward that we can apply toward balancing the budget. Sorry, not how it works.
And notice how it is savings from "winning" Iraq, Afghanistan (which, since
McCain apparently hasn't noticed,
just experienced the bloodiest month since the invasion seven years ago), AND presumably the entire "fight against Islamic extremists", because
McCain's economic plan seems to rest on the assumption that he doesn't get us into any more wars (you know, like
bomb bomb bombing Iran for instance, which you can be almost certain he would, or perhaps getting into an armed conflict with China, because he "
hates the gooks" so much). But for a second, let's put reality aside and pretend that
McCain can "win" Iraq, and "win" Afghanistan, and "win" the "war on terror", and doesn't get us into any new wars, let's basically assume that suddenly
McCain makes the whole world love us. Even then, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that reducing troop levels in Iraq to 75,000 by 2013 would cost an
additional $205 billion (on top of the already huge spending levels) between 2008 and 2013. And that is just Iraq, not counting Afghanistan. And somehow with that
McCain is going to balance the budget. Right. Apparently we are going to have to move on to his other plans to see how he is supposedly going to pull this off.
The second part of his plan is to continue Bush's tax cuts for the rich (which the CBO estimates would cost
more than $700 billion in the next five years), and then
tack on at least $300 billion in
additional tax cuts for the rich (and corporations, don't worry,
McCain hasn't forgotten you). Are the alarm bells going off yet? How in the hell, does
McCain expect to balance the budget by continuing a hopeless, destructive, and very expensive war for at least 5 more years (
possibly longer, he keeps changing the number) while giving the rich HUGE tax cuts??
McCain might have missed this, but his plan is EXACTLY Bush's plan, which is what led us to record deficits in the first place! The Bush administration was the first in American history to actually
decrease taxes during a war (in other words, the only one in history to greatly increase the money going out, while cutting off the money going in...because that is CRAZY), and now
McCain wants to be the second in history. In short, he either has absolutely no clue how the federal budget works, or he is FLAT OUT LYING to voters when he says he can balance the budget in his first (or even second) term. His plan is to take the shovel that Bush has used to dig us into the economic hole we are in, and dig faster. And this is supposedly going to fill in the hole. Does
McCain think we are idiots??
McCain says we'll make up for these hundreds of billions of dollars in war spending, and the over $1 TRILLION price tax for his rich people tax cuts, by cutting "wasteful earmarks". For some perspective, this year there were about $17 billion in total earmarks. The total budget was $2.9 trillion. Yeah, that $17 billion,
A longtime foe of pet projects known as earmarks, Mr.
McCain said he would stop such spending. The Bush White House says earmarks this year total $17 billion, a comparatively small share of a $2.9 trillion budget. $17 billion is less than the cost of a month and a half of the Iraq war.
McCain thinks cutting that, blindly, will solve our problems. I say blindly because earmarks aren't all wasteful, in fact some fund vital programs. Some go to thinks like flood control and repairing bridges.
McCain doesn't seem to understand that not all earmarks are bad, he sees everything as black and white, much like Bush, so to him all he needs to know is that it is an earmark, and it must be destroyed, even if it is money well spent. Make that example #4881 of
McCain not understanding the federal budget.
McCain also says he will freeze non-military discretionary spending at current levels for a year, again, blindly, without any regard for the consequences of what that would do to the affected programs. As the
New York Times points out:
This proposal would affect education, scientific research, law enforcement and scores of other programs.
Mr. Bush’s battles with Congress suggest it would be extremely difficult for Mr. McCain to win approval for such a freeze.
The budget process isn't something that should be approached recklessly. Programs live and die based on federal appropriations. The functioning of government and countless programs rely on proper funding. You can't just arbitrarily "freeze" funding without any regard for its consequences. Yet that is exactly what
McCain says he will do. It is hard to think of a more irresponsible, reckless, and ignorant approach to the federal budget. Make that example #4882. Not to mention all of this is politically impossible, which is something else he fails to mention to voters.
But hell, let's just say
McCain gets everything he wants in his wildest dreams, and even goes further, let's say he completely ELIMINATES all non-military discretionary funding, which accounts for around $540.8 billion annually. That means eliminating the Department of Health and human Services, Housing and Urban Development, the Centers for Disease Control, the EPA, the FDA (you think we have problems with tainted meat and produce now), the Department of Education, the Department of Labor,
NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Small Business Administration,
Amtrak, student financial aid, etc, you get the picture. Say we did all of that, completely gutted the federal government, which would essentially destroy life as we know it...and that only gets us $540.8 billion. Recall that
McCain's new tax cuts for the rich would cost us at least $300 billion, add $10 billion of his "
gas tax holiday". Recall extending Bush's tax cuts for the rich would cost over $700 billion. And don't forget the hundreds of billions of dollars we are spending in Iraq every year, a war that by many estimates will cost us upwards of $3 trillion (in direct and indirect costs) by the time it is over (whenever that would be in a
McCain administration). Essentially,
McCain could cut all (non-military) "discretionary" (which isn't really discretionary at all, it is what the government runs on) spending, and STILL not balance the budget with his wars and his huge tax cuts for the rich. And of course such cuts are impossible, just as even his blind "freeze" on discretionary spending simply won't happen, Democrats aren't that irresponsible with managing the federal budget. But
McCain doesn't tell voters any of that either (I'm assuming, hoping, he knows that).
McCain, of course, like every Republican, would like nothing more than to destroy Social Security (which
he recently called a "disgrace"), Medicare and other social services, so he also takes aim there. He has said he will cut spending in the so-called "entitlement programs", which almost all Americans rely on for retirement, and tens of millions rely on for health care. So what if Americans are already hurting and finding it hard to pay for retirement or for health care,
McCain and the Republicans want to cut these vital social programs anyway. Of course
McCain won't get specific about how he wants to cut these programs, because saying it would doom him electorally, so he just hints at it, and the media of course doesn't connect the dots and hold him accountable. Ezra Klein
hits on this:
"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.
In short: He is playing voters for fools, and the media is helping him do it by refusing to do their job. But there is hope, at least, as
the NYT reports:
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 would be very difficult to achieve in the best of circumstances, and even more difficult under the policies that Senator McCain has proposed," said Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan budget watchdog group.
[...]
C. Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute, who worked in the Reagan administration, said Mr. McCain "may well be committed to balancing the budget in five years, but does not tell you how he would reach that goal."
J. Bradford DeLong, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, who worked at the Treasury under President Bill Clinton, said, "Senator McCain and his advisers want to claim they will balance the budget by 2013, but they have given us no clue and no plan to meet all the commitments he has made and still get there."
In other words, he has made promises that are impossible to keep. In other words, he is either flat out lying to voters, promising things he can't deliver, or he is a complete idiot, who really has no idea how impossible balancing the budget would be with his budget proposals. I do think he is an idiot, but no one is
that stupid, I think it is obvious he is lying.
Newsweek and Factcheck also have a good breakdown of
McCain's budget distortions,
part I here, and
part II here.
Which is why I'm writing this, because we have to keep exposing
McCain's lies and distortions, in hopes that the media will eventually end their love affair with
McCain and start doing their job. We can always dream.
Update: Oh yes, McCain has been running around saying his economic plan has been endorsed by 300 economists, but it turns out they were duped into endorsing a short statement of economic principles, which McCain then attached to his 15-page economic plan. In fact many of the economists say they have reservations about many parts of his plan, and wouldn't have endorsed the actual plan. Apparently McCain doesn't save dishonesty for the voters, he gives everyone around him the same treatment.Update #2: Also, check out Obama's memo on the economy, for some good juxtapositions of his plan and McCain's "plan".
