John McCain
John McCain is going to be another GOP candidate, who couldn't organise a bread fight in a bakery.
The latest wheeze by McCain, is to guarantee the freeze in Federal Spending for the next four years, excluding Defense and the VA.
That sounds good, until you actually start looking at the details of what the government spends.
One of the biggest outlays of government spending, which is in effect, a conservative tax, is the interest paid on the Federal debt. In 2008, Debt interest payments will account for an eye popping 240 BILLION DOLLARS.
If McCain about going to freeze spending, I take it that, for the next four years, the amount of debt interest paid, will stay constant or decline. Thanks to the bailout, the debt incurred, will attract more debt interest. But we are also assuming that revenues, for the next four years are going to be constant or increase. It looks like the recession will impact more in 2009, so it is a good rule of thumb, revenues will decline, and spending will have to increase.
So any nonsense of estimating the next four years's worth of spending is well and truly guess work.
The other nasty lie, that Conservatives avoid like the plague, is the effect, that Federal spending has on the growth of the economy.
Depending on who you talk too, between 15% and 40% of GDP growth, is accounted for,by federal spending. The miunte, you start turning off the tap, the impact will be to hamper economic growth, so any recession, will be prolonged and deeper.
McCain also forgets to mentioned, that Defense spending will still increase year on year, to fund Iraq and Afghanistan. Is someone really telling me that funding for a 100 year war, can be done on the cheap?
The 9/11 card has been played that many times, the ink has been rubbed off. Neil Cavuto tried to justify 5 trillion dollars of debt by dragging up 9/11, but this isnt the Al Qaeda economy, Bin Laden just isnt that powerful.