Skepticism

Robert Pear runs down the evidence that there's no way on earth John McCain is going to balance the budget by 2013 consistent with the priorities he's outlined. To put a hard number on it, according to the CBO if we extend the Bush tax cuts (as McCain has proposed) then even ignoring McCain's proposals to increase defense spending, to further cut taxes, and to continue the war in Iraq, we'll have a deficit of $443 billion.

Obviously, there's uncertainty associated with that projection, but that's the ballpark. That would mean something like an 80 percent reduction in Medicare spending.