Anyone want to bet when the press will call him on it? I'll take 2016 and the over.

Ezra: as luck would have it, McCain says in his new proposal that he does not plan to fix entitlements by raising taxes.

I did some math over at ObWi, and as best I can tell he needs to come up with at least $655billion/year from "wasteful spending", Iraq victory ponies, and reforming SS. The total amount of SS benefits in FY2009, of course, being $688billion.

If a budget is out of whack, one of two things has to happen: You need more revenues, or you need to cut spending.

You left out option 3: invade Iran.

So is McCain promising a massive payroll tax increase? Or is he just spouting platitudes?

Do we even need to ask?

Buried waaaaay down McCain's web page, on a "staging site," whatever that is, I found this:

"John McCain supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts -- but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept."

Smells like massive benefit cuts to me.

Not that a clueless progressive blogger would ever be able to grasp this but there is a third way.

10% of Medicare expenditures are lost to fraud and waste. If you eliminate that in no honest measure are you cutting Medicare. Your paying out the same benefits as before they are just costing you billions less.

It's not your fault you didn't get that, you would have to have an actual clue how our healthcare system works to know.

On this other point it was either poorly worded or your an idiot, or both;

"McCain has already forsworn revenue increases"

really is that so? Would you have a link to where he promied the government would not take any revenue over a certain amount? I have heard he doesn't want to raise taxes but anyone with high school educaiton knows exisitng taxes can generate more revenue. You seem to be claiming McCain has sworn to what eliminate the taxes once they hit their $ target? An improved economy, a green technological reveloution, royalities from increased oil exploration, any number of events could significantlly increase revenues without changing tax rates. ANWR and OCS drilling alone could contribute trillans annually to GDP in 5-10 years. Take the billions we send to the ME each year for oil keep it home and multiple by 7 for the turnover of money and see how many budget problems that solves.

This post was about as factually accurate as your post on HSAs and women's healthcare, come to think of it your's is the only blog I have read that never issues corrections, what's amatter don't have that much time?

He is just lying. He is a politician you know. And so is Barak Obama. Whichever gets elected will for the most part do what he thinks the people want, which BTW is not always what they say they want. You do not get to where they are in politic by being doing otherwise.

Nate: How can there still be waste and fraud? Reagen eliminated it. Ok, Clinton brought some back, but Dubya squashed it. None left. Sorry.

Nate:

First off, you can't eliminate all waste and fraud - if it was all that easy it would already be done. I'm going to take the 10% claim on faith (and what is waste to one person is a benefit to another, and that person would likely protest any cuts). Not to say that some savings couldn't be realized, but let's be honest - for FY2009, Medicare is only going to be spending $425 billion or so, and $42.5 billion won't plug the hole in McCain's budget.

Also, let's be honest about what Ezra was talking about - revenue increases above the baseline. You, me, Ezra, the CBO and many others are well aware that tax receipts grow with economic growth. That's already factored into the budget forecast, and without raising taxes (which McCain says he won't do), we should expect no incremental revenue increase. The problem isn't that revenue won't grow, it's that it probably won't grow quick enough relative to spending to close the deficit.

Finally, drilling for more oil won't contribute trillions to US GDP. To get just one trillion would require 5 billion barrels annually even at $200 bbl, abstracting from ancillary economic activity needed to generate said production. My guess is that if oil somehow gets to $200 bbl despite 5 billion of additional US production, that the world economy isn't going to be in great shape. You also can't simply multiply by 7 to get the benefit of each barrel of oil produced domestically vs. imported - think about it, does it really make sense that cutting $100 billion of imports adds $700 billion to U.S. GDP? Hell, let's just cut $2 trillion of imports, double our GDP and call it a day! And I actually support expanding domestic drilling...

10% of Medicare expenditures are lost to fraud and waste. If you eliminate that in no honest measure are you cutting Medicare.

Can I get a pony too?

How is it progressives know so little. Ans why is it that the progressives that know the least run their mouths the most?

Velocity of money, look it up. A dollar spent in the US can turn over 7-10 times in a year. A dollar sent to the ME is gone and has no further impact on US GDP.

http://www.economagic.com/em-cgi/charter.exe/var/vel-gdp-per-m1

allow me to fix your math, 1 trillion would require 59 million barrels at today's prices of $140 your off roughly 940 million barrels, I guess it's your liberal education.

"think about it, does it really make sense that cutting $100 billion of imports adds $700 billion to U.S. GDP?"

If your educated it does

You are = you're not your. Sorry, pet peeve.

Thank you, Nate, for that clear explanation of how McCain plans to balance the budget. People, Nates, explained it all, and it's very simple--McCain plans to do it with magic. A pony in every pot, and two ponies in every garage, to paraphrase that great Republican president, Herbert Hoover.

I just multiplied $140 by 59 million three times, and it keeps coming out to $8.26 billion.

I know what the velocity of money is. However, I don't see how replacing oil imports with domestic production has anywhere that large an impact on GDP. GDP equals number of labor hours x productivity. Cutting oil imports by $100 billion and replacing it with domestic production would not end up adding $700 billion - $1,000 billion to real GDP, unless you can explain to me how productivity and labor hours would jump 5-7% above trend. This does explain the Republican mindset behind tax cuts and deficits - you guys must think that each deficit dollar creates 7-10x that amount in GDP! That whole thing about Clinton enjoying 3.7% annual GDP growth during his first 7 years in office vs. Bush II's modest 2.4% over his first seven years must really be embarrasing.

Thanks Matt for pointing out that $140 x 59 million = $8.26 billion. Maybe there is a phantom muliplier that gets us home to $1 trillion.