McCain: Let's Add $4 Trillion More To The Debt

Hilzoy questions McCain's tax cuts:

The Gordon/Kvaal report estimates the cost of these changes at $2.17 trillion dollars over ten years. They think their estimates are conservative: for instance, they do not count increased spending on debt service. The Wall Street Journal, everyone's favorite bastion of radical leftism, writes: "In all, his tax-cutting proposals could cost about $400 billion a year, according to estimates of the impact of different tax cuts by CBO and the McCain campaign." That would make the cost over ten years $4 trillion. [...]

Let's pretend that McCain's advisor is right, and earmarks really do cost $60 billion a year. And let's ignore the fact that some of those underperforming programs might actually be useful programs that should be reformed, not eliminated. The problem is: that still leaves $130 billion a year to make up, if you accept the Gordon/Kvaal report's figures, or about $320 billion a year, if you accept the WSJ's.

And that's without taking into account the costs of paying for that hundred year war McCain keeps talking about, rebuilding the army, paying for veterans' health care, or anything else we might take it into our heads to do.