Democrats and Deficits

John McCain undoubtedly bites off more than he can chew when he promises to balance the federal budget. He is a champion for fighting earmarks and pork, but those amount to a tiny sliver of the budget pie. The real budget meat is in the entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and other transfer programs that currently amount to more than half of the total spending per year. Even if he is successful in forging a compromise fix for Social Security, it is unlikely to shrink.



Meanwhile the Democrats have done an about-face on deficits this election year, and nobody seems to notice. For most of George W. Bush's reign, the Democratic minority in Congress were deficit hawks. They complained incessantly about the supposed squandering of the Clinton surpluses, and held press conferences touting "record deficit" numbers (fiscally irresponsible, but not close to record if you adjust for inflation). Now that they're the majority party in Congress and Obama is the frontrunner, suddenly deficits don't matter at all. Asked about McCain's balanced budget pledge, Obama said:

"I do not make a promise that we can reduce it by 2013 because I think it is important for us to make some critical investments right now in America's families"

Note the weasel word he uses, investment. How did we go from Bush deficits being terrible to deficit spending = investment? It's simple, Democratic overspending is good, Republican overspending is bad. Libertarian Steve Chapman takes both sides to task for the coming fiscal disaster. The scariest part is that if the Dems control both the Whitehouse and Congress, the new spending burden will likely be much worse than if control is divided. Chapman notes:

The National Taxpayers Union Foundation added up all the promises made by the two candidates and found that McCain's would cost taxpayers an extra $68 billion a year. Obama's add up to $344 billion a year.