Powered by Max Banner Ads
John McCain Promises To Balance Budget In Four Years
The McCain campaign told the Politico this morning that John McCain intends to balance the budget in four years if he becomes President.
He says he’ll accomplish this by curbing wasteful spending and taking on one of the most politically dangerous issues on the planet—social security.
“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 Obama campaign had a predictably chilly response to McCain’s proposal with one Obama aide calling the plan “preposterous.”
Barack Obama: Tax and Spend Democrat Revealed
Barack Obama has presented himself as the oracle of all that is hopeful. A man who can appeal to both Democrats and Republicans alike. A man of great conviction and real straight talk who promises that his 15 minutes as a Senator more than qualifies him to be leader of the free world.
However, once Barack Obama clinches the nomination and the new car smell wears off, the American people are going to begin taking a second, third, and possibly fourth look at the hope-filled legislation Mr. Obama has proposed while on the campaign trail.
He’s kept his legislative proposals purposely vague in the hopes that his being the first African-American with a real shot at the Presidency will overshadow the realities of his proposals.
Leave it to The Wall Street Journal to look under the hood and see exactly what Obama’s social security plan looks like.
What it reveals is a departure from his original (and quite reasonable) position that social security is in trouble and we should do whatever is necessary to fix it, to one of a left-wing Democrat determined to raise taxes.
…But having cornered himself among Democratic activists whose attitudes toward Social Security reform range from demagoguery to denial, Mr. Obama has recently veered sharply left. He now proposes to solve the looming Social Security shortfall exclusively with higher taxes.
“Once people are making over $200,000 to $250,000,” Mr. Obama says, “they can afford to pay a little more in payroll tax.” No shared sacrifice, no outreach to moderates or conservatives, here.
Mr. Obama’s plan will certainly sound sweet to far-left activists who don’t actually believe social security is in trouble in the first place, but will do little to actually solve the problem.
After the dust settles, the Obama plan will only keep social security solvent for an additional three years, meaning that liberals will get the tax hike they fantasize about but the social security problem will remain.
What’s more, Mr. Obama’s plan would keep Social Security in the black for only three additional years. Under his proposal, annual deficits would hit in 2020, instead of 2017. By the 2030s the system would still run an annual deficit exceeding $150 billion.
Mr. Obama’s modest improvements to Social Security’s financing come at a steep cost. The top marginal federal tax rates would effectively increase to 50.3% from 37.9%, equivalent to repealing the Bush income tax cuts almost three times over.
While predictable, it never ceases to be amazing that Democrats really believe the answer to a lagging economy is to increase taxes. How they’re able to arrive at that conclusion is surely as convoluted as the idea itself.
When you look at the vast majority of proposals this election cycle from Barack Obama what you see is a liberal Democrat who cloaks his left-wing agenda in hope-filled speeches and lofty rhetoric.
-Chris Jones
Social Security is Not Broke
I’ve heard that Social Security is out of money. The Cold War was completely financed by the money withheld between 1946 and 1986. Trillions of dollars were taken from the general fund for spending on the military.
By not isolating Social Security deductions from hundreds of millions of paychecks our elected leaders had all the money they needed to do whatever they wanted. If there was never a separate account – IT CAN’T BE BROKE! The beneficiaries of this spending were stockholders and upper management of the defense industry.
Had this not happened, there would be a surplus so large it would pay larger checks with complete medical coverage and prescriptions for generations to come.
So what can we say about people that knew they were ruining our country while they passed their midnight acts where no could see what was going on? For that matter why doesn’t the government make sure their spending is below their income like we have to do all our lives. If they over-spend, all they do is ask the Federal Reserve to print a few billion and then agree to pay 13% interest. Wouldn’t it be smarter to not over-spend? I’d go without a lot before I would borrow at 13%.
The corruption that builds up over 200 years is so entrenched that another constitutional convention is called for. It could take quite some time to develop an alternative to the current system but it would be well worth the effort. Something extreme needs to happen or America will end up looking like a fourth world country indebted to the world.
By Lloyd H. Frye
Op-Ed Columnist
The Hot Joints
Posts
