« on: August 11, 2008, 06:41:52 PM »
On the campaign trail, Sen. Barack Obama bashes President Bush for "reckless" economic policies that are "mortgaging our children's future on a mountain of debt." But the Democratic presidential candidate has adopted a key component of Bush's fiscal policy: A novel bookkeeping method that guarantees that the $9.5 trillion national debt will get much bigger.
When Obama promises to cut taxes for the middle class without increasing the deficit, he is measuring his proposals against the large deficits that would result from Bush's plan to extend his signature tax cuts beyond their 2010 expiration date. Because Obama wants to eliminate some of the Bush tax cuts, he would bring more money into the Treasury, permitting him to pay for new programs without increasing the deficit even more.
But under current law, all the tax cuts expire and the deficit disappears completely. Democrats in Congress have vowed to preserve the Bush tax cuts only if they can cover the cost and keep the budget in balance. Measured against current law and against the promises of his fellow Democrats, Obama would rack up huge deficits. According to a recent analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, Obama's tax plan would add $3.4 trillion to the national debt, including interest, by 2018.
"Obama has criticized Bush for his fiscal irresponsibility, and now he's using Bush's baseline as a yardstick by which to measure fiscal responsibility," said Leonard E. Burman, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. "Congress hasn't agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts because they don't have the money to pay for it."
By adopting Bush's bookkeeping system, Obama has frustrated deficit hawks who say government should live within its means, especially given a new White House forecast that the next president will face a record $482 billion deficit during his first year in office. Obama also appears to undercut congressional Democrats who have made pay-as-you-go budgeting a central tenet of their leadership, insisting that new policies should be paid for instead of adding to the nation's debt.
SNIP
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/09/AR2008080901860.html
Logged
I can see November 2 from my house!!!
Spread my work ethic, not my wealth.
Forget change, bring back common sense.
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No, my friends, there’s only one really progressive idea. And that is the idea of legally limiting the power of the government. That one genuinely liberal, genuinely progressive idea — the Why in 1776, the How in 1787 — is what needs to be conserved. We need to conserve that fundamentally liberal idea. That is why we are conservatives. --Bill Whittle
