GOP turns up heat on Obama spending
Posted: Wednesday, October 01, 2008 10:34 AM by Carrie Dann
From NBC's Carrie Dann
The RNC says that the mercury's rising on an Obama meter that has nothing to do with the latest battleground state polls.
"Barack Obama's Spend-O-Meter," a new feature on the RNC website, offers a thermometer graphic illustrating the costs of Obama's new policy proposals, which Republicans say could top one trillion dollars.
The site estimates the costs of various items in an Obama administration's budget, including his plans for energy, health care, national service, and education. "If Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) could enact all of his campaign proposals, taxpayers would be faced with financing $1.238 trillion in new spending over one White House term," reads the bold print at the top of the lengthy - and expensive-looking - list.
What the site doesn't outline are Obama's various methods of offsetting those costs, which include slashes to wasteful and pork barrel spending and the reversal of the Bush tax cuts. And, although Obama's spending plan is not matched by comparable projected revenue increases, McCain's proposals would also bump up the national debt substantially. Per FactCheck.org, an analysis by the Tax Policy Center shows that "McCain's proposals would raise the debt by between $5.1 trillion and $7.4 trillion over 10 years. And while McCain has promised to balance the budget by 2013, the Tax Policy Center notes that doing so would require a 25 percent reduction in federal spending. Few economists outside the McCain-Palin campaign think that is a feasible goal. "
