Balanced Budget?

It was day one of economics week for John McCain. The presumptive nominee of the Republican Party now says he wants to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term, that is, 2013. This is a switch for McCain, who previously opined the budget would take two terms to balance. This is a tall order on a number of fronts. First, President Bush notwithstanding, the nation is in a recession. Balancing budgets during a recession is difficult.

Yet this isn't the toughest part for McCain. Economists and fiscal experts say his proposed tax cuts would be the real impediment to balancing the budget. Where do you derive revenue to lower the deficit if at the same time you're driving down revenue? McCain has an answer. He's proposing a hold on overall spending growth to 2.4% a year. Never mind the average growth rate in federal spending has been 6% per year for the past five years. And that's with a Republican president.

Then there are the big ticket federal spending programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. McCain says he'll slow their growth as well. But how? Each of these programs provide benefits to millions of Americans. Most of them are voters, and the GOP learned the hard way what happens when you try to tamper with them.

Then there are those pet congressional spending programs called earmarks. McCain has long opposed them, and says as president he'll eliminate them. Trouble is, his friend President Bush says earmarks this year total $17 billion dollars. In a budget of nearly $3 trillion dollars, that's a drop in the bucket.

If McCain can't put more meat on the bones of his budget balancing proposal, consider it DOA in the court of public opinion.