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WaPo: McCain's Mixed Fiscal Policy

But it's not the head so much as the lede:

With economic proposal, candidate tries to straddle the GOP's dueling camps on deficits.

On the one hand, you got the so-called fiscal conservatives, a group that claims balanced budgets as a first principle. (Leave aside for the moment that they have never once been able to follow-through on their rhetoric). On the other hand, you've got the Cheney-styled "deficits don't matter" crowd. So yes, mixing those two would require quite the straddle.

Amazingly, that's not even the biggest understatement in the piece:

John McCain has been around Washington long enough to remember the days when Republicans constantly clashed among themselves over fiscal policy. Were they the party of Jack Kemp, of supply-side economics and big tax cuts, or the party of Bob Dole and the green eyeshade economics of deficit reduction?

McCain today finds himself with a foot in both camps, though tentatively. He remains an unconvincing tax cutter but he is also an unpersuasive deficit hawk, at least on the basis of his latest economic plan. He is a pure reflection of the Republican Party he seeks to lead.

That proposal, unveiled with great fanfare on Monday, moved him back in the direction of deficit reduction after a lurch toward tax cutting designed to make him more acceptable to the party's supply-side devotees.

Budget experts were quick to note that McCain lacks a blueprint to achieve his goal of balancing the budget by 2013.

If by "lacks a blueprint" they mean "includes no details whatsoever," then OK, fine. McCain promises everything to everyone in his budget without numbers, going so far as to promise a balanced budget based on - I'm not making this up - "victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists."

Josh Marshall:

This has to be one of the better examples of McCain's penchant for policy by slogan seeping out from the campaign trail into actual policy proposals.

McCain's people do realize that there is no budget mark down for 'victory'. Whatever victory's other merits, it is only reductions in expenditures directed (in the broadest sense) toward the war zones that get you actual budget savings.

Is McCain saying that both wars will be over by the end of his first term? And if so, is that victory with all or most of the troops staying on post-victory, as he's implied? Or will they all have left by then? Remember, Adm. Mullen says we need more troops in Afghanistan to deal with spiraling situation developing there. But we don't have any more because of our commitments in Iraq.

And if his four-year balanced budget promise is premised on rapid victory in both theaters, isn't that sort of arbitrary timelines on steroids?

John Cole calls it "just making shit up":

Keep in mind that McCain is promising to do all this while also promising to extend the Bush tax cuts AND ramping up military spending all during a bleak economic setting with current deficit projections hovering near 400 billion annually. Oh, and did I mention the aging population and rising health care costs, and the shrinking dollar, and our energy crisis?

Back to Josh:

I think we may have come to that moment, that quick turn of events, that encapsulates the fact that there is apparently no limit to the howlers and nonsense that John McCain can throw out and still not generate collective guffaws or even scrutiny from the national political press...

Now, the general routine is the face of this kind of candidate announcement is that journalists and economists look at the numbers to see if they add up. In most cases, the exercises generates fairly unsatisfying contradictory opinions, with some experts saying one thing and other experts another.

But here's the thing. McCain doesn't have any numbers. None. Not vague numbers of fuzzy math. He just says he's going to do it. Any other candidate would get laughed off the stage with that kind of nonsense or more likely reporters just wouldn't agree to give them a write up. But this is all over the place.

The simple truth is that given his foreign policy promises in Iraq and tax cut promises at home there's really no way McCain could come up with even a fuzzy plan to balance the budget in his first term. So he's decided instead just promise it. Included in his white paper is just the standard hocum about cutting waste, fraud and abuse in government and making sure we have "reasonable economic growth."

Remember, this is the guy who's riding on his reputation for 'straight talk'. And he's just promised that he'll balance the budget in his first term. For any serious reporter covering this campaign that should immediately lead to a request for actual numbers to back up how he's going to accomplish that.

But I've saved the best analysis for last. Hilzoy is just shredding today. After an extensive look at the numbers implied by McCain's "proposal" - and you really should read the entire thing, so no excerpt of the body - she concludes:

So far, I have argued as though I thought McCain was actually serious about balancing the budget. I was taking him at his word, and giving him the benefit of the doubt. But I do not see how it's possible to even begin to work through his various proposals and think that he is. I suspect that he doesn't fully understand many of his proposals, and so might well be unaware of exactly how big a hole he's planning to blow in the deficit, ad how unlikely it is that he will be able to plug it by the means he's specified. But I don't think that even he can actually believe that he can make up $695 billion by cutting earmarks and "reforming" Social Security.

The deep irony here is that this is precisely the same problem Reagan faced decades ago. His supply-siders convinced him that he could simultaneously increase defense spending, cut taxes, and balance the budget. After two years, it was obvious to anyone with eyes and a brain that it wasn't working, but rather than backtrack and admit their mistakes, they tried to straddle the fence and have it both ways. And Republicans have been trying to force that nonsensical approach on us ever since.

But there's one key difference between then and now, of course. Back then we had limited experience with the downsides of supply-side theory. Now we have $9.5+ trillion reasons to reject it. Reagan might have had an excuse for his cluelessness, but McCain? No such luck for him. Or us.

Let's get out of here with a warp-up from Ezra:

You know the old saying, "misses the forest for the trees?" In political headlines, there should be an analogue: "Misses the policies for the press releases." Take Mike Allen's article entitled "McCain Promises to Balance Budget." Everyone promises to balance the budget. It's like telling your dentist that you floss every night. If that's actually what's in the story, then the article shouldn't have been written.

The question, of course, is how you will balance the budget. If a budget is out of whack, one of two things has to happen: You need more revenues, or you need to cut spending. McCain has already forsworn revenue increases, and isn't saying anything to the contrary. And here, Allen has the goods, albeit goods the Prospect had a couple months back: McCain will "balance the federal budget by the end of his first term by curbing wasteful spending and overhauling entitlement programs, including Social Security, his advisers told Politico."

"Overhauling" is a weasel word. So, in this context, is "reform." If you are going to balance the budget by doing something to entitlement programs, you are going to do one of two things: Raise the payroll tax, or cut the programs. In other words, the accurate headline for this piece would read "McCain Promises to Cut Social Security And Medicare Or Drastically Raise The Payroll Tax." If enough pieces like that were written, McCain would have to explain which of those he intends to do. As of yet, he's been able to dodge the question, saying repeatedly that he'll "talk' to Congress. But Congress won't cut Social Security or Medicare. So is McCain promising a massive payroll tax increase? Or is he just spouting platitudes? It's an interesting question, and it actually has an answer. But in order to get that answer, reporters will need to aggressively explain McCain's plan: Cut Social Security and Medicare. Or pass a huge tax increase. Those are his only two options. And the legendary straight talker should be able to explain which he favors.