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Candidates look at future budget
Sen. John McCain, left, and Barack Obama
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TEXT OF STORY
Bill Radke: Tonight's the third and final presidential debate. We're used to candidates promising all sorts of help for the middle class. But with record deficits, costly bailouts and a possible recession, are these candidates over-promising? John Dimsdale takes a look.
John Dimsdale: In the first debate, Senators McCain and Obama were asked how the financial bailout will affect their ambitious campaign promises. John McCain had an idea:
Senator John McCain: How about a spending freeze on everything but defense, veterans' affairs and entitlement programs.
Debate host: Spending freeze?
McCain: I think we ought to seriously consider.
Barack Obama would only agree that a "range" of things may have to be delayed:
Senator Barack Obama: The economy is slowing down so it's hard to anticipate what the budget's going to look like next year.
According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, each candidate's spending promises would add $200 billion to already record deficits every year. And this week, both campaigns called for another $50 [billion] to $60 billion to jumpstart the sputtering economy.
The Committee's president Maya MacGuineas says that extra stimulus might be necessary.
Maya MacGuineas: It's not the time to say we need to roll up our sleeves and balance the budget right away.
Because, MacGuineas says, we face a real economic challenge. But in the long run, she says the candidates will have to find places to save money.
In Washington I'm John Dimsdale for Marketplace.
I see. So somebody who sat in an Air Force supply depot in North Dakota for 3 years dispensing tylenol and condoms, gets to have health care... but a single mom working at wal-mart with a second job at taco bell for 5 years, she doesn't get to have health care. Why? Spending freeze!
Maybe the single mom should join the Army! That's it!
We can simply transfer all of our normal social programs, like the interstate highway system, air traffic control, border control, port inspections, federal education programs, housing, medicad, etc, into military programs! The Army can take over the interstate highway system, universities, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. Woohoo!
But, as we know, we have to outsource everything the Army does to private contractors, because they are so much more efficient. So, the new Army Highway Administration can outsource all of its work to no-bid contractors like Halliburton. We can outsource highway security to Blackwater, and get rid of the Highway Patrol. Now, since those guys are under military contract, they don't have to obey the same laws as the highway patrol, and can finally 'wash the scum off the streets', like Taxi Driver.
Thanks John McCain, for your brilliant plan. You said the Iraq War would 'not be difficult' (Oct 2002 quote), I guess transitioning our economy so that everyone works for the military won't be difficult either.
Oh, and it will be ideal for employers too, because if you miss work, you don't get fired... you get AWOL, and the MPs will hunt you down and drag you back and threaten you with court martial. So much for the 13th amendment.
