Word: soundingly
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...Where will the candidates cut spending to prevent the deficit from exploding? On this point, both candidates are relying, as usual, on sound bites rather than actual policies. Obama says he wants all sorts of cuts to waste and abuse, including procurement reforms and a reduction in earmarks, but he doesn't estimate the exact savings of these measures. He does, however, acknowledge that he wouldn't end deficit spending in his first term...
...That's because unlike sound bites, the policies proposed by Obama are actually complicated. He would raise taxes on those who make more than about $200,000, in some cases by significant amounts, through increases in taxes on capital gains, dividends and regular income. But Obama has also proposed a whole range of tax cuts, for poor seniors, working people, homeowners and parents, as well as for health-care expenses and even renewable energy. The net effect, according to experts in both campaigns and independent analysts, would be a reduction in government revenue over 10 years. In other words...
...They are better off speaking in sound bites and generalities," says Bob Williams of the Tax Policy Center, who recently did the unthinkable with some colleagues: he tried to figure out what the two candidates' tax plans would actually mean. It wasn't easy. "One challenge facing anyone who wants to estimate the effects of candidates' tax plans is that no one - not even inside the campaigns - knows exactly what the proposals are," reads an early conclusion of the resulting report. "In a sense, we have done them some harm here by saying we want to pin you down...
...McCain, who has a bigger hole to fill because he will collect less taxes, the spending issue is one he says he would tackle with gusto once in office. But the details of those spending cuts are mostly, once again, in the sound-bite stage. McCain has promised "comprehensive spending controls," "across-the-board scrutiny" and a bipartisan congressional commission to chop up spending. The goal, says Holtz-Eakin, is to return to the fiscal discipline of the late 1990s, when then President Bill Clinton struck a deal with a Republican Congress to limit spending increases. "People write [new spending...
...independent analysts think that McCain has much hope in reaching his goal of a balanced budget by 2013, but then they are just working off sound bites, not actual numbers. The McCain campaign's hypothetical spending cuts would only be achievable, they say, by a President who did not have to negotiate with a historically big-spending Congress. "King McCain might be able to do it," says Len Burman, another author of the Tax Policy Center report. "But President McCain will have a very difficult time...