Entitlements

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".

"No matter what new promises each candidate makes on the campaign trail, his greatest challenge will be digging out from under the mountain of debt Bush will leave behind... Yes, McCain still champions slicing and dicing pork barrel spending projects. That is one of his trademarks. But those cuts are not a metaphor for his broader fiscal plans; they're a distraction from them... If the Republican candidate is serious about not growing the largest deficits ever, cutting a few slices of pork won't be enough. Voters who supported him on account of his commitment to fiscal responsibility should be asking themselves a question many thought the Republican standard-bearer would have already answered: Where's the beef?"

August 21 - Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, introduced a new paper from US Budget Watch on C-SPAN this morning. Promises, Promises: A Fiscal Voter Guide to the Next Election describes the major policies of the presidential candidates, separated into taxes, healthcare, energy, and other spending. The report offers estimates of each proposal's cost in 2013, the last year of the next presidency. As paper explains:

"The two major political parties' presidential candidates are campaigning on a lengthy list of policy initiatives, most of which would have significant impact on the federal budget...[This paper] attempts to offer voters a ‘best guess' of the costs of proposed policies if enacted as the candidates describe them...The next president will face difficult fiscal challenges. It is therefore critical that voters understand the potential budgetary impacts of the candidates' plans."

August 11 - David Walker, former Comptroller General of the U.S., told MSNBC today that the federal government faces a shortfall of $54 trillion dollars and the our entitlement system has the "makings of a super-subprime crisis dealing with the federal government's finances." Although entitlements like Social Security and Medicare are driving a lot of the projected shortfall, MSNBC questioned if the nation has an appetite for reform. Putting reform in the context of the coming election, Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said:

"Leadership is only going to come from somebody using the bully pulpit to create a mandate, so this is the opportunity for leadership...Otherwise, a crisis is what it will take. And that's a real problem, because Wall Street is short-term focused ...The financial markets will make us deal with it, but it will be too late when they do."