McCain pledges balanced budget, criticizes Obama

[Warren Stupidity]

Source: AP


By PHILIP ELLIOTT – 1 day ago

BETHLEHEM, Pa. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain promised Wednesday to balance the federal budget despite the nation's deepening economic distress.

McCain said he would "confront" the massive federal debt and would balance the annual federal budget by the end of his term in office, without specifying whether he meant in four years or perhaps eight years should he be elected twice.



Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iE2JCSH5p9r2GBkQWS9TWAMzmuvQD93MJH200

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Stupid pathetic bitter McCain. When not participating in the increasingly bizarre hate rallies that are now the norm for republican campaign events, he is proposing absurd idiocy as policy.

First, you can't balance the budget, not while you are fighting two wars and adding another 300B in tax cuts to the already completely out of whack revenue stream thanks to your predecessors insanely irresponsible tax cuts.

Second, if you did attempt to balance the budget by actually reducing federal expenditures (and where exactly, other than the 18B of earmarks you can't control, would you cut, numbnuts?) a balancing act that would require 500B or more in reductions, that action alone would reduce economic activity in our republic to levels not seen since 1932.

Liar. Idiot. Hate mongerer.

Take your Hate Talk Express and go home Johnny.

[stray cat]

1. Obama supports pay go or at least thats my understanding

[Warren Stupidity]

3. There will be no balanced budgets for the next 15 years at least.

[tclambert]

6. Cynic. I once thought balanced budgets were impossible, and then it happened under Clinton

The secret, it turns out, is a booming economy. Add 18+ million new jobs, 18+ million new taxpayers, and poof, voila, deficits disappear. Reduce expenditures on the wars, reduce the wasteful spending Bush brought in, and pump up the middle class to invigorate the economy, and there's a chance. More jobs means more people can make mortgage payments, too, which in turn means fewer bad loans the bailout has to cover.

It all comes down to jobs. The Bush/McCain policy, trickle down economics, has proven unsound. The rich get more money directly from the government without having to hire anybody (except lobbyists and Congressmen). Obama's plan to help the middle class will do better. THAT will stimulate spending, the definition of stimulating the economy. Whether it will be enough, we can't know. Obama has a way better chance of succeeding at it than McCain, though. McCain still thinks he can do the same thing Bush and Reagan did and get different results.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. I don't think you have quite grasped the magnitude of the economic

crisis we just fell into. This is not a one day downturn, this is not a inexplicable blip like '87. At best it might be on the order of the 15 year stagnation of the 70's, but for now all the parallels are pointing at the '30s.

[tclambert]

13. We don't have unemployment comparable to the '30s

Not yet, anyway. What we have now is NOT as bad as the '30s. It it like 1929. The credit industry has built a house of cards (credit cards?), but if we can prevent a vicious feedback loop from forming, we can stop the dominoes from falling. (Sorry for the mixed metaphor, but that's what I needed.) What we have here is a chance to head off a second Great Depression, IF we learned from the first one. McCain and the deregulators clearly did not.

Some textbook long ago said the solution to the Great Depression was actually the massive jobs program known as World War II. I will say again, it's all about jobs.

One advantage we have now over 1929, is that this is an election year. We can change direction now, hopefully before it gets too bad. In '29, they had to wait over three years to get a new leader who would DO something. We only have to wait a little over 3 months.

[Warren Stupidity]

28. We didn't have unemployment comparable to the 30's in 1929 either.

It took quite a few years for that global financial crisis to cause massive unemployment. All I really know is that in my 57 years on-planet I have never seen this level of high-finance panic in the midst of a bear market. Collapse of huge private institutions and massive government interventions across the globe? When was the last time that happened?

[tclambert]

19. I won't go as far as to predict we WILL balance the budget before your 15 year figure, though.

I'm not as confident as that. But if we do, I will shamelessly claim credit for successfully predicting it. See, that's how you do good predictions. You set it up so you can claim success either way.

When Clinton took office, the deficit was around $290B. I didn't think it could be balanced in 8 years. Took me by surprise when it was. I will be surprised if the current mess can be fixed in 8 years. But not as surprised. John F. Kennedy said a rising tide lifts all boats. We need a frakkin' storm surge this time.

[Frank Cannon]

2. Balanced budget. That's a good one, McCain.

We've all seen, through several decades, how good the Republicans are at balancing budgets.

Why doesn't he just promise us that if he is elected, all our wildest dreams will come true? It worked for Pedro.

[UnrepentantUnitarian]

4. Without relying on deficit spending, they have nothing left.

Reagan knew it. Bush knows it. McCain knows it too. That low-taxes, diversionary shell game is all they really have.

[torbird]

16. deficit spending, clearer

Keynes advocated deficit spending, along with taxation commensurate with the immediate budgetary needs of the government. The two things, tax cuts and deficit spending, are not necessarily inseparable therefore. The next president will have to raise taxes on some level -- I prefer it be on corporations, as Obama suggests; and also will have to spend money we don't have in order to kick-start the economy. The key(nes? Pun!) to deficit spending is WHAT you spend it on. Bush has spent it on military adventures across the globe that bring about $0 to the United States. Obama will need to spend massive amounts on roads, schools, infrastructure, new technology -- but ALL those are great investments in terms of return: the USA gets jobs, more tax paid, more paid into SS and FICA, higher-level tech jobs, better schools, etc. It truly is a short- and long-term investment that pays back what we have to deficit-spend in the short-run.

Anyway, not really germane to the McCain discussion, so I apologize. But, I also don't bother to think about a McCain presidency anymore, because it cannot happen.

[tclambert]

22. Thanks, torbird, good post

[Thor_MN]

5. The next president doesn't have to promised a balanced budget, Bush promised it by 2012

So all the next president has to do is sit back and allow Bush's policies to work.




:crazy: :puke: Sorry, just watched an Insannity/Coultergiest Youtube got splashed with some of the koolaide

[tclambert]

9. Know a guy who claims to believe that

He insists it takes a while, like 8 years, for a President's financial policies to really have an effect. Therefore, the prosperity under Clinton is really Reagan's doing (what happened to HW?), and the malaise under Dubya is Clinton's fault.

"So all the good stuff that happened under Reagan was Jimmy Carter's doing?"

"Well, it's not 100%."

To avoid responsibility for their obvious policy failures, hardcore Republicans will twist logic into pretzels. If Obama succeeds in rebuilding the economy, they will try to credit George W. Bush.

The good news is, independents will look at reality and reasonable Republicans will sometimes risk a glance toward reality. Prediction: Obama re-elected in 2012 by a landslide, >60%. (I'm already on record predicting Obama's victory this election.)

[Javaman]

8. LOLOL and I'm going to shoot golden cheese cakes out my ass!!!!

:rofl:

[tclambert]

20. You must have read McCain's plan.

Golden cheesecakes, that's what his balanced budget relies on.

[Life Long Dem]

10. Well when you know you lost, you can make any promise you want.

[MarjorieG]

11. Clinton forced to balance budget, then GOP spent it, as usual. We have to do a lot more now...

Carfeul investment and spending, while reshaping the economy. Only the Dems could pull this off, especially a non-ideological assembler of talent, Obama, in charge.

[blueclown]

12. How does McCain expect to reduce the deficit without rolling back the Bush tax cuts?

Or at least taxing the highest marginal earners at a higher rate?

Does he think we are dumb?

[alcibiades_mystery]

24. It's as impossible as an elephant flying to the moon

These people are ideologues disconnected from any reality whatsoever. Bush was handed a balanced budget. His wild spending, no-economic-sacrifice wars, and deeply mistaken tax policy put us into a hole deeper than the one Clinton clawed us out from. You cannot cut taxes and eliminate a deficit. It's practically an objective fact at this point.

[blueclown]

25. The media won't call him out on it.

He's been getting a free pass on this.

Where is he going to cut spending? Medicare? Social Security? If he wants to make cuts to those two programs, he should be honest and tell the American people that.

There is no way to reduce the deficit under his proposed tax plan.

[fascisthunter]

14. After Eight Years of Spending this Moron thinks.... nevermind

what a liar

[Rockholm]

15. Hey McSame...there may not be any money soon to even have a "budget"

[VP505]

17. Sure McSame will balance the budget, just like Booo$h did.

If anyone thinks McSame actually could balance the budget in one term let me know, I can get you a great deal on a bridge or two.

[Zynx]

18. Not a fucking chance.

[tclambert]

21. McCain's campaign has officially abandoned "straight talk"

[alcibiades_mystery]

23. A Republican balancing the budget??? ROFL

Hilarious.

And, of course, he's gonna do it with MORE TAX CUTS, just like Bush did. The revenue generated thereby will work MAGIC!!! :eyes:

What level of objective evidence to the contrary will ever make these lunatics abandon their senseless positions?

[Cresent City Kid]

26. Erratic lurch of the week

No new taxes on the wealthy means this will be all from cuts, deep ones. But of course, that's only if he follows through. If he can't hold a consistent campaign message for more than a few days, how will he be able to do what's required to pull this off? Will this promise even make it to Inauguration Day if he's elected?

[RedEarth]

27. Give me a break....... that won't happen for years