EDITORIAL Undisciplined

Jul. 21, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- John McCain has pledged to balance the federal budget by 2013, the end of his first term in the White House. The Arizona senator and Republican candidate for president could keep his word, conceivably, if he reclaimed his earlier opposition to the tax cuts proposed by President Bush and approved by Congress. Unfortunately, McCain now supports extending those tax cuts, at a cost to the Treasury of $700 billion the next five years.

How would the senator cover the loss in revenue? McCain makes the job more difficult, proposing a package of corporate and other tax reductions. He rightly seeks to "phase out and eliminate" that alternative minimum tax, currently clipping many in the middle class. Achieving such a step would deplete federal coffers by $60 billion a year.

The senator often touts the revenue-generating capacity of the economic growth triggered by the tax cuts. An expansion does increase revenues but hardly at a pace that makes up for the difference, the loss due to the tax reductions, not even close.

McCain exchanges his supply-sider garb for the look of a deficit hawk when he promises to curb federal spending. He talks about holding overall spending growth to 2.4 percent a year. No small feat in view of the past five years, spending increasing at annual rate of 6 percent. Two of the largest federal programs, Medicare and Medicaid, follow the upward trend of health-care costs, at a pace closer to double-digits. More, McCain shows little sign of reducing the country's profile in Iraq and Afghanistan, two exceedingly expensive missions.

What about those earmarks, a favorite target of McCain on the campaign trail? The White House calculates that these projects, the sound and the ludicrous, total roughly $17 billion this year. Hardly a decisive sum in a federal budget of $2.9 trillion.

Truth be told, McCain has been vague (at best) about how he would achieve the slower rate of spending growth. He knows that once defense, large entitlement programs and interest on the debt are tallied, a small fraction of federal spending remains, for the likes of education and law enforcement.

Barack Obama hasn't been a paragon of fiscal discipline, either. The Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate has ambitious plans for health-care and other social spending. He does deserve credit for proposing an end to the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest taxpayers, and for expanding the payroll tax (up the income scale) to bolster Social Security. That may be as bold as either candidate gets.

The reality is, the country won't begin to put its fiscal house in order until it confronts the cost of Medicare and Social Security, say, requiring wealthier recipients to pay higher premiums or receive reduced benefits. That effort must include large farm operations that consume huge federal subsidies. Even then, a rate of 2.4 percent growth in federal spending would be hard to accomplish without further responsible steps that John McCain has yet to discuss.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0006-26795296