September 14, 2004
YOU PAY FOR YOUR MISTAKES:
$3 Trillion Price Tag Left Out As Bush Details His Agenda (Mike Allen, September 14, 2004, Washington Post)
The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade.A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.
Bush's pledge to make permanent his tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of 2010 or before, would reduce government revenue by about $1 trillion over 10 years, according to administration estimates. His proposed changes in Social Security to allow younger workers to invest part of their payroll taxes in stocks and bonds could cost the government $2 trillion over the coming decade, according to the calculations of independent domestic policy experts.
The full transition to individual accounts will likely cost more than that by the time it's done, but it's money well spent. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 14, 2004 10:59 AM
The big difference here of course is that Kerry is talking about adding $2Trillion to govt spending while Bush is talking about shifting $3BN from the govt to people thru social security reform ($2TN) and tax cuts ($1TN). Not surprising the MSM doesn't get the difference.
Posted by: AWW at September 14, 2004 1:15 PMOne thing we know about ten year economic projections: They're always wrong.
Therefore, it makes sense to project a "best case" and a "worst case" scenario, detail the assumtions that went into each, and wrangle over those.
A $ 100 billion a year shortfall is obviously a "doomsday" scenario, and begs the question, why would Congress continue to spend so much, if year after year there's a revenue gap ?
After a projected decade of deficit spending, it no longer would make sense to blame it on old tax cuts.
This is of course absurd. Social Security already has long-term obligations to the younger workers, which will come due. The government doesn't use real accounting, and thus pretends that those liabilities doesn't exist. Acknowledging the problem and trying to fix it does not create the $2 billion shortfall; it's always been there.
The point of the individual accounts is that they will reduce the future liability of the government towards the workers that shift from Social Security to these accounts.
Posted by: John Thacker at September 14, 2004 1:37 PMWhat the first guy (AWW) said.
OJ,
Given your higher status in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, let the folks at conspiracy central in on this tidbit.
Kerry's plans costs THE TAXPAYERS because he is going to take more of their money to pay for more government.
Bush plans cost THE GOVERNMENT because they give people back control over the money taxed from them. Bush is, in effect, selling a MASSIVE wealth transfer from Bureaucracies (HSA, Soc. Sec, & Ed. Choice) to the people.
If he uses this effectively in his debates, he'll win 70-30.
Your number one idea boy.