John McCain's Magical Economic Plan

Update: 3:30 pm - I'm waiting to get on a McCain conference call right now. I'm not sure I'll report on it, that depends on several factors, but I was really amused by who they have on the call:

PRESS CONFERENCE CALL

WHO: Meg Whitman, former President and CEO, eBay Inc. Doug Holtz-Eakin, Senior Policy Adviser, John McCain 2008

So, We're going to balance the budget selling old copies of MAD magazine and Star Wars dolls?

Update: 3:47 pm They took 3 questions. None of them were about Ebay. One of them was whether the McCain campaign would be releasing hard numbers to back up their claim of balancing the budget by the end of his first term. Doug Eakin decided to summarize the plan instead of answer the question, so I guess it's a no. I'll post the audio later.

On the heels of a campaign shake-up, John McCain has released his new economic plan, and it is filled with McCain's new answer to Barack Obama's messages of Hope and Change: Magic!

According to McCain's new economic plan, making money is as easy as one, two, POOF! Under McCain, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would make piles of cash appear:

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.

If you are spending $200.00 a month on your credit card for cigarettes, and you quit smoking, you save $200.00 a month, but can you use that $200.00, that you're now not spending, to pay off that credit card?

According to John McCain's new economic plan, you sure can.

That's just one whopper in a whopper-filled paragraph, from a whopper-crammed economic plan. That passage alone also employs the logical fallacy that McCain will help America by ending his own policies, which he hasn't implemented yet and has said he will not end.

I could spend all day picking this plan apart, and I'm sure I will, but primary to that exercise is the recognition that this is a fundamentally flawed plan. It relies mainly on reducing spending and cutting taxes, while promising to balance the budget. Unfortunately, as Obama adviser Jason Furman points out, there ain't enough spending in the world to do that.

McCain would have to pay for all of his new tax cuts and other proposals and then, on top of that, cut an additional $443 billion from the budget-which is 81 percent of Medicare spending or 78 percent of all discretionary spending outside of defense.

See, you can't pay your mortgage by canceling your HBO subscription. Now that we have that out of the way, here are a few more interesting, sometimes hilarious, tidbits from the plan.

He flogs the gas tax holiday again, calling for a moratorium on the tax from "Memorial Day to Labor Day." Didn't any of his advisers pass him that famous It's July, Now memo? He obviously missed the earlier one, entitled, "There Are No Experts Who Think This Is A Good Idea, We Know, Because Howard Wolfson Checked."

But what I really loved was the intro to that section, which seems to have been written by a 4th grader doing a book report.

John McCain will help Americans hurting from high gasoline and food costs. Americans need relief right now from high gas prices. John McCain will act immediately to reduce the pain of high gas prices.

Third Bush term, indeed. I also love the way he goes all non-specific with this third-rail sentence:

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.

That's it. Just an ice-breaker, really. We'll go over the details after you get old and sick.

He also attacks unions, and women and children, in on fell swoop.

Minimizing expensive mandates – such as those for health insurance and pro-union initiatives like card check.

Expensive mandates that keep insurance companies from cutting essential benefits, like mammography, childhood immunizations, and in-network payment for emergency room visits, so they can reap greater profits. Also, he circles back to hit unions again later in the document, specifically government workers' unions.

He rings the popular earmarks bell again:

Take back earmark funds. The McCain Administration will reclaim billions of add-on spending from earmarks and add-ons in FY 2007 and 2008.

The problem is, he won't say which programs he would cut. Not all earmarks are "pork." Recently, McCain tried to say that New Jersey's highway projects were "unwanted and unnecessary," for example. I drive 100 Parkway miles a day, so I disagree. McCain seeks a line item veto, so only he could decide which projects are worthy, and which are not.

He also points to his disaster of a health care program, his "Lexington Project," in fact, the new plan is pretty much the same as the old plan. From the NY Times:

Mr. McCain's aides said he will not offer any significant new economic programs or ideas.

I could do this all day, but I have other things to do. Golden Books wants me to critique their new coloring book.

Look, I'm no expert on the economy, so I can hardly fault McCain for not being one, either. I just wish he would hire someone who is. Either that, or find a cabinet post for David Copperfield.