Yesterday I noted an editorial from The Washington Post which showed that, while none of the three remaining candidates are particularly fiscally responsible, John McCain was the worst. The New York Times looks at the same issue today and reports the same result:
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.
“High tax rates are driving many businesses and jobs overseas — and, of course, our foreign competitors wouldn’t mind if we kept it that way,” Mr. McCain said, laying out his economic plan this month in Pittsburgh. “We’re going to get rid of that drag on growth and job creation.”
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.
