President McCain’s Budget Plans

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On March 5th , George W Bush used these words to endorse John McCain’s presidential replacement bid: "John showed incredible courage, strength of character and perseverance in order to get to this moment and that's exactly what we need in a president — somebody who can handle the tough decisions, somebody who won't flinch in the face of danger."

Of course, many of us recall Bush’s endorsement of the way the New Orleans crisis was being handled: “Brownie you’re doing a heck of a job.” Brownie was FEMA Director Michael DeWayne Brown, and the words were spoken on September 2nd 2005; within a month Brown had to resigned in disgrace over his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina – for which the praise was given. We know from past experience, every time Bush has praised someone, or something, it has turned out to be a debacle of historic proportions. George W is a consistent cheerleader for losing teams; can we expect any more from his praise of John McCain? What does McCain now propose for America?

We know Bush has produced a record half trillion dollar Budget deficit and is single handedly responsible for one third of the current National Debt. But what could we expect from a President McCain? For that answer, we need only look at the McCain Health Care Proposal – which is, effectively, a universal tax cut for all Americans.

Specifically, McCain has proposed a refundable tax credit, $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families for everyone buying private health insurance. McCain would also treat company provided health insurance as payroll tax exempt employee income.

It all sounds good – until you look at real numbers. For example, a family earning $60,000 and a typical employer-provided insurance policy that costs $12,100. Under the McCain plan, the family receives an immediate $7,100 taxable income increase ($12,100 - $5,000) for an increase in taxable household income and a net decrease in disposable income with the accompanying economic suppression (reverse stimulus) effect. As the income paid would remain deductible to the company, they would experience the credit as both income and tax neutral.

Of the roughly 115 million American households, about 78 million are families; thus the refundable family credit would decrease federal revenues by $360 billion dollars, with the remaining individual households adding another $92.5 billion. Effectively, McCain has proposed a doubling of the current Federal Deficit without address the real Health care problem – it’s basic cost.

We have all heard of the cheap Canadian system. Some are aware that 2008 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. The most recent figures I could find have the Canadian system costing about $1,000 per individual, and the UK system equates to1,500 pounds ($2,990) for every man, woman and child in the UK for a program which includes, cradle-to-grave the UK system, which covers both medical and dental with no point of service charges. It should also be pointed out, that while the UK system costs more than the Canadian, it also provides emergency coverage for immigrants and tourists at no cost.

Here in America, 59 million people, either delayed or did without needed medical care last year because they could not afford it. Here, the average cost for medical treatment is about $7,500 per person – that’s $4,500 more than the UK. The difference is accounted for in several ways. 1) The UK does not cover elective treatments such as Botox and tummy tucks; 2) as there is no co-pay or point of service patient billing, that provider accounting cost is nonexistent; 3) as the coverage is universal and cradle to grave, there is no need for Medicaid or Medicare with its associated bureaucratic functionaries; and most important, 4) as the medical providers function under a contract, there is no insurance company, or governmental clerical bureaucracy whose sole apparent, or effective, purpose is to deny or dispute claims for treatment rendered.

Consistent with the Bush endorsement, the McCain Health Care Proposal is another GOP Budget busting boondoggle intended to hurt both the American citizenry and economy. Of course, like Bush, McCain functions on multiple disruptive fronts. Both men have promoted increased domestic oil production as a short-term solution to our reliance on foreign oil. In that regard, Newsweek (July 7-14, pp 44) illustrates why American doesn’t have any oil for that purpose. We are twelfth in the world with regard to reserves and consume in a single year an amount equal to our total know reserves.

The Bush-McCain “pump more” advocacy would render us 100% dependent on foreign oil before the end of a McCain presidential term. More important, once we are out of oil, our military becomes dependent upon foreign powers to function; all of our military trucks, tank, ships and planes become dependent upon the good graces of Venezuelan dictators, or the stability of Middle Eastern Islamic potentates. And that is regardless of the price they will exact to provide each barrel of crude.

Consider, this is only a sample of the McCain Budget and security plan for America.

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