by Damozel | The Politico has the story on those 300 economists' 'enthusiastic endorsement' of his economic plan --- or as he put it, 'a whole lot of economists, including Nobel laureates.'
The endorsement could hardly have been stronger. On Monday, John McCain’s campaign released a statement signed by 300 economists who “enthusiastically support” his “Jobs for America” economic plan, providing a heavyweight testimonial to the presumptive Republican nominee’s “broad and powerful economic agenda.”
But there is a credibility-shredding 'but.'
Upon closer inspection, it seems a good many of those economists don’t actually support the whole of McCain’s economic agenda. And at least one doesn’t even support McCain for president.
In interviews with more than a dozen of the signatories, Politico found that, far from embracing McCain’s economic plan, many were unfamiliar with — or downright opposed to — key details. While most of those contacted by Politico had warm feelings about McCain, many did not want to associate themselves too closely with his campaign and its policy prescriptions. (The Politico)
One signed it as an expression of 'general support' for McCain, without particularly endorsing specifics. One, who supports Obama, said, ' “Maybe I shouldn’t have rushed into signing the letter.”
How could this happen?
Apparently, adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman began collecting signatures from economists months ago as a way of demonstrating general support for McCain’s broad economic priorities, not the specific (and ridiculous) 15-page report the McCain campaign released at the same time as the list of the 300 economists. (The Carpetbagger Report)
At Carpetbagger, Benen also points out:
On almost every subject of significance, especially on the economy, McCain has proven himself to be, for lack of a better phrase, utterly foolish. He doesn’t understand Social Security. He doesn’t understand interest rates. He doesn’t understand how supply and demand affect energy policy. He doesn’t understand that tax cuts don’t generate government revenue. He can’t even begin to explain how he’d keep his transparently ridiculous promises about eliminating a $400 billion deficit in four years
Pointing out that the press gave Clinton all sorts of grief over her exaggerations over Bosnia, TNR is certain that the media will call McCain out on this one.
Back during the primaries, you may recall, Hillary Clinton got a lot of grief when it turned out she had exaggerated the danger she faced when visiting Bosnia as First Lady during the 1990s. It dominated news coverage for a week and dealt her a major political setback, which is pretty typical for media coverage of exaggerations--both real and imagined. (Just ask Al Gore.)
I'm sure, then, that the talk shows will be all over this terrific piece of journalism by Alexander Burns and Avi Zenilman in Politico. On Monday, John McCain's campaign released a statement touting 300 economists who said they "enthusiastically support" the McCain economic plan. The document had already caused some whispering in the academic community, mostly about some notable and well-respected conservative economists conspicuous for their absence. But it turns out that wasn't the real story. (The Plank)
EXHIBIT A: McCain's statements on social security.
EXHIBIT B: McCain's embarrassing performance performance on CNN. McCain's got exactly two ideas that he learned from the great Ronald Reagan: 'Restrain spending and cut taxes magically makes the economy grow and NO OTHER FACTORS APPLY!'
You can see a video and read a transcript here or read my perhaps slightly biased summary below to get the gist.
SLIGHTLY BIASED SUMMARY:
HOW WILL TAX CUTS HELP BALANCE THE BUDGET?
Roberts points out that the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' says if McCain extends Bush's tax cuts and adds the one McCain wants, 'the deficit for the year 2013 would be somewhere around $439 to $445 billion. How then, will he get the deficit to zero?
McCain wants Roberts to check 'with other [more partisan] organizations' and McCain's 300 economists (plus Nobel laureates !) who agree with his plan. The problem has been spending! Unrestrained spending! McCain's plan will 'reach restrained spending' because he's going to make 'the economy grow again and increase revenues.' This happens by magic when you restrain spending and keep gases low.... Spend tax dollars on nuclear power plants and you get 700,000 jobs! You get 20,000 with coal gasification! '
.
Um, Roberts also checked with the Congressional Budget Office and their numbers are even higher. But McCain explains that this is because those organizations don't base their projections on the guaranteed magical combination of restrained spending and tax cuts! Number-crunching organizations just crunch 'static numbers' that don't take the magical synergetic power of restrained spending plus tax cuts into account!Roberts directs McCain to the fact that extending the Bush tax cuts and adding in his own mathematically takes you from a $70 billion surplus to a $445 billion deficit.
Roberts just doesn't want to admit that spending is out of control and that's half the problem! And Roberts also just doesn't want to admit the other half that higher taxes means revenue goes down! Cutting taxes, the way RONALD REAGAN did, magically makes the economy grow, as was proved in 1982. The only reason we had to borrow money from China was spending got out of control. Only unrestrained spending is the reason we are in trouble now.
Roberts protests that he just wants McCain to explain how those numbers put out there by these organizations that specialize in these issues magically get down to zero.
McCain thinks Roberts is really just laying out a different opinion: the different opinion that the numbers DON'T magically get down to zero when you RESTRAIN SPENDING and CUT TAXES to GROW THE ECONOMY.
Roberts says that he thinks 'some voters' won't to know how the magic will work 'if the amount of money you need to save to get down to zero is the total amount of the nonsecurity discretionary budget that the federal government operates on.' Oopsie. He mentioned 'voters.'
But McCain knows voters -- he meets them all the time at town halls. All voters want is for the government to figure out how they can keep jobs, pay low taxes, get health care, and keep their homes. Voters don't care about budget projections; they just want the government to fix all their problems by magically 'growing our economy and creating new jobs' through restraining spending and lowering people's taxes.
Roberts thinks voters probably think voters care about social security since to balance the budget he'll have to reform social security. How is McCain going to privatize social security when Bush couldn't? How will he fix it?
McCain will do it like Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill and say: Let's come to an agreement. Congress has 12% approval ratings, but McCain can 'work across the aisle'! They'll iron it all out with the backing of the American people!
Younger voters don't want to pay for the retirement of old people. That's how the system is broken. So young people can keep their money and put it in an account with their own name on it, so they can pay for their own retirement! But present-day retirees who paid for the retirement of former retirees will not be affected! Privatization is the answer!
ROBERTS: Senator, on this issue of earmarks that you talk about frequently, you reiterated that you've never take an earmark. Can you clarify something? Back in 1992, you were trying to get $5 million for a wastewater treatment plans in Nogales. You tried to get it through Congress, they wouldn't put it through Congress, so you sent a letter to then-president George H.W. Bush, where you quote, "I would like to request that EPA either reprogram $5 million out of existing funds, or earmark the amount from an appropriate account, to meet the wastewater treatment needs at the Nogales plant." Was that an earmark?
MCCAIN: Of course not. It was a request to have it put in the President's budget. And that's a very legitimate request that the administration will ask for. The definition of an earmark is a program that is put in, and money that is put in an unauthorized fashion in the middle of the night. So no, it's not that, and it's not the same.
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