Word: budgeting
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...stump. That's not how this game is played. On Wednesday, the Obama campaign put out a press release claiming that McCain's economic plan was "$2.8 trillion more expensive than his advisers previously admitted." These were ominous words, playing into the old story line about Republicans using budget gimmickry. But the statement was largely based on an interpretation of a tax plan - for an optional alternative income-tax system, with a flat rate - that McCain has never described in detail, let alone with enough specificity to gauge. And it uses a budgetary scoring system that the Obama campaign rejects...
...that the candidates don't want to talk about the economy or the federal budget. In recent weeks, they've been doing a lot of that. But they speak in words that don't really mean much. "I will reform our tax code so that it's simple, fair, and advances opportunity," said Obama at a rally in Raleigh, N.C. "American workers and families pay their bills and balance their budgets, and I will demand the same of the government," declared McCain at a speech in Denver...
...domestic product, which is the sum total of the nation's economic activity. According to congressional accountants, the Federal Government spent about 20% of the GDP in 2007, while taking in 18.8% of the GDP in taxes. The difference between spending and tax receipts - about $162 billion - was the budget deficit...
...According to the Tax Policy Center, neither Obama nor McCain has laid out plans to close the budget deficit over the next 10 years under current spending regimes. Not counting health proposals, the McCain plan would collect about 17.9% of GDP through taxes. The Obama plan would collect about 18.4%. For comparison, congressional accountants predict that, under current law, the Federal Government is projected to spend about 19.7% of GDP in the same time period, meaning both McCain and Obama would run deficits - 1.8% and 1.3% of GDP, respectively - without significant cuts in federal spending or surprising growth...
...independent analysts think that McCain has much hope in reaching his goal of a balanced budget by 2013, but then they are just working off sound bites, not actual numbers. The McCain campaign's hypothetical spending cuts would only be achievable, they say, by a President who did not have to negotiate with a historically big-spending Congress. "King McCain might be able to do it," says Len Burman, another author of the Tax Policy Center report. "But President McCain will have a very difficult time...