McCain

November 4 - As the campaign season comes to a close, each candidate is making his final pitch - and fiscal policy has been an important theme. In a Wall Street Journal piece, yesterday, Senator McCain said that as President:

"I will fight the Democrats' plans to redistribute the fruit of America's labor and turn our economy into a full-fledged disaster. I will cut taxes on families, seniors, savers and businesses. We need to double the child deduction, cut the capital gains tax, and keep jobs in America with a lower business tax...I will make government finally live on a budget and enforce that discipline by the power of veto. I won't spend nearly a trillion dollars more of your money. I will impose a short-term spending freeze and rid the government of waste, duplication and fraud. And I will chart a different course than the administration and Barack Obama and not spend your money just to bail out Wall Street bankers and brokers."

In his own Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Senator Obama argued that:

October 31 - To help voters better understand the fiscal implications of the candidates' campaign proposals, CRFB released four reports this week:

• Guide to Social Security: The 2008 Presidential Election
• Guide to Stimulus Proposals: The 2008 Presidential Election
• Guide to Health Care: The 2008 Presidential Election
• Guide to Tax Policy: The 2008 Presidential Election

In addition, CRFB released a special health care update to its voter guide: "Promises, Promises: A Fiscal Voter Guide to the 2008 Election".

October 30 - In a recent article, CNN.com features CRFB's and other observers' analyses of the candidates' positions on Social Security.  In particular, the article focuses on growing consensus that the candidates' have given unduly little attention to the problem of Social Security reform.  Quoting findings from CRFB's "Guide to Social Security" report, it notes that "Social Security has been mentioned in the candidates' speeches 10 percent of the time, while "change" and "health care" are brought up 60 to 75 percent of the time." CRFB President Maya MacGuineas sums up the difficult situation facing the next president:

"In many ways, you actually have to feel very sorry for the person who is going to move into the White House this January...They have a really tough battle ahead of them...They are going to have to come to terms with the fact that they made a lot of promises during a campaign that we're not going to be able to afford to pay...[but] it's critical that we fix these problems sooner rather than later."

October 29 - The New York Times published an article this morning that looks at how both presidential candidates' spending policies might affect the deficit.  The piece reviews the largest components of McCain's and Obama's spending plans-and their proposals to pay for them-along with the candidates' prospects for narrowing the deficit.  An excerpt:

Conservative and liberal analysts agree that the next president should not be expected to balance the budget in his first term, because short-term deficit spending can stimulate the economy and the crisis is forcing the government to spend more in aid even as it collects less in taxes.  But for the long run, they say, the president's fiscal record will hinge on whether he can achieve the health care cost savings each promises, which in turn will help control the fast-rising expenses for Medicare and Medicaid. Neither candidate has a comprehensive proposal to address unsustainable growth in those programs.