Gov. Sarah Palin today in Jacksonville, FL:
John McCain will impose a spending freeze in government to cover all but the most vital functions. We will review every agency of the federal government, improve those that need to be improved and eliminate those that aren't working for the American people. We will confront the ten trillion-dollar debt that the federal government has run up, and balance the federal budget.
Austerity works. A spending freeze to cover "all but the most vital functions" raises the basic question: what will the Democratic Congress consider vital? McCain has already, fairly bravely, promised to cut Medicare and Medicaid in order to pay for most of his new health care plan, so that nets out.
"...balance the federal budget" -- Not a goal of the next Democratic Congress.
As National Journal's Brian Friel points out, since 1985, nondefense discretionary spending has stayed between 3.2 and 3.9 percent of GDP; the level of defense spending is determined by the course of world events; and entitlements eat up a larger share of the pie. So, unless McCain cuts entitlements deeply and quickly, unless he slashes discretionary spending to the bone, unless he reduces the size of the Defense Department and quickly ends the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the budget won't be balanced. Add to the that the uncertainty of just how much the bailout will cost -- could be several hundred billion, could be nothing and the cost of a coming economic stimulus package, and deficits become near impossible to project.
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