if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803
McBudget
Well, this would be nice.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) plans to promise on Monday that he will balance the federal budget by the end of his first term by curbing wasteful spending and overhauling entitlement programs, including Social Security, his advisers told Politico.
The vow to take on Social Security puts McCain in a political danger zone that thwarted President Bush after he named it the top domestic priority of his second term.
McCain is making the pledge at the beginning of a week when both presidential candidates plan to devote their events to the economy, the top issue in poll after poll as voters struggle to keep their jobs and fill their gas tanks.
“In the long-term, the only way to keep the budget balanced is successful reform of the large spending pressures in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid,” the McCain campaign says in a policy paper to be released Monday.
“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.”
The pledge is a return to an earlier position he’d later backed away from. On April 15, McCain backed off a February pledge to balance the budget in his first term when asked about it by Michael Cooper of The New York Times, who reported that McCain said “at a news conference … that ‘economic conditions are reversed’ and that he would have a balanced budget within eight years.”
I still think McCain would be better on fiscal discipline than Bush has been, but this sounds dangerously close to the “No New Taxes” pledge that Bush Senior made, and we all know how well that worked out for him.
Update by Lee: Wanna know just how serious he is about this?
“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.”
What savings? This war as is going to cost us roughly a trillion dollars when all is said and done. He’s going to need to trim a trillion dollars out of the budget just to break even on this disaster. The savings from victory in Iraq? Who, other than the usual bunch of rah-rah jingoistic fucktards, thinks that anything even remotely resembling “savings” is going to come out of our little Iraq misadventure?
I like the idea of trimming government. But saying that “savings from victory” is a key part of his reduction plan is like saying saying he’s going to reduce debt via the savings we’ve accumulated by not having to defend against an attack by Martians.
McCain: “And I pledge to you, my fellow Americans, that every single dollar we don’t spend fighting Martian attack is a dollar that will go to pay off the debt!”
Mind-numbed Crowd: “Yaay! U-S-A! U-S-A-!”
Comments
BATFE, FDA, Dept of Education, Dept of Agriculture, Dept of Commerce, NEA.....
Great, then Americans will be a bunch of stupid, uneducated, cultureless, armless, alcogolic (sic) cancer sufferers poisoned by their own medicine with no money, nothing to eat and nothing to sell.
Fabulous idea!
Stogy, are you still mad because the government won’t pay to help you develop your silly walk?
I’m sure there are several government agencies that can be eliminated to give us a trillion dollars in savings:
BATFE, FDA, Dept of Education, Dept of Agriculture, Dept of Commerce, NEA.....
The 21% of the federal budget you are referring to would amount in total to about 540 billion dollars if you canceled everything. Among the things you would be axing are veterans benefits and health coverage and funding for infrastructure. (I find it interesting that veteran’s benefits are here instead of part of the cost of defense) Anyway, Seattle, you are going to have to take your ax to another area of the budget, getting rid of the government will not get you where you want to go.
I am voting for McCain because of his vietnam experience, and because I dislike Obama intensely.
So it doesnt bother me when McCain says shit like this. I already know he’s an imbecile.
McCain’s remark was obviously pointed at Obama who plans to spend the Iraq money on more social programs. Haven’t you ever heard the whole leftist mantra “How come we’re spending hundreds of billions in Iraq. We could use that money to buy welfare for 60 more people!” McCain’s point is “No, you couldn’t, we don’t actually have that money”.
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I’m sure there are several government agencies that can be eliminated to give us a trillion dollars in savings:
BATFE, FDA, Dept of Education, Dept of Agriculture, Dept of Commerce, NEA.....