McCain on Balancing the Budget

[John McCain-SAC]

482 billion dollars. I would like to tell you that this is the amount of money that was donated to charities this year, but it is actually the projected deficit for President’s Bush's last year in office, 2008. This number easily tops the record setting $413 billion deficit in 2004. Coincidentally, the last year of Presidents Bush's first term. The white house says this is mostly due to our suffering economy and the stimulus payment made to many taxpayers earlier this year (The Associated Press). Still, numbers like this have been common place for the last few years. In fact, our deficit in 2007 was $161.5 billion, which was the lowest since 2002 which had a $159 billion deficit. Although numbers like these are astronomical. Including inflation, proportionately, there have been deficits that were just as large in the 1980s and the early 1990s (Taylor).

Senator McCain has a plan in place to have our nation’s budget balanced by 2013. The white house has said part of the reason for our record breaking deficit this year is our declining economy. The last few months our economy has been steadily failing but things should start looking up soon. There are predictions from the budget office of a 1.6% growth this year, and Senator McCain believes that economic grow is key to helping us get to where we need to be to balance the nation’s budget. "Historically the greatest success in reducing deficits (late 1980s; late 1990s) took place in the context of economic growth". and much like the late 1990s, a bi-partisan effort will help in balancing the budget by scrutinizing all spending, choosing all spending proposals carefully and will also “be the key to undoing the recent spending binges”. Still, all of these plans are quick fixes and senator McCain feels that the longevity of a program like this can only be sustained through a complete overhaul of our Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare systems. And to help maintain a prosperous economy, a focus should be put on small businesses to help create more jobs in our workforce (http://www.JohnMcCain.com).

Works Cited:
“Bush administration projects record '09 deficit.” 28 July 2008. 23 October 2008 .

“Reforming Washington to Regain the Trust of Taxpayers.” www.JohnMcCain.com. 23 October 2008 .

Taylor, Andrew. “US deficit zooming to half-trillion as bush leaves.” 28 July. 2008. 23 October 2008. .

Written by: Randall Flores

[Willie]

I dont even know if Mccain will even be around in 2013. His plan touches the areas that need to be fixed or even done away with but it does not given explanation as to how to do it. I think he means well but doesnt understand the trumoil of the average person. Its easy to get a lot of related topics together and let them play off each other but its another to truly break something down and point out its flaws and strength explain which pieces must go and why and then explain what your going to do to fix. I did like the paper it was somewhat informative.

[Patrick Morrison]

I agree with Randall that Senator McCain has great plans on how to get us out of our debt, but the only problem is convincing the Senate to actually allow all of these changes to be made. Getting out of our economic decline without spending a lot of governement money will be extremely hard to accomplish, shown by the approval of the Stock Market bail out plan.

[Randall Flores]

All of this is only the tip of the iceberg. The Senator has great ideas on how to balance our budget and how to pull our economy out of this rut we have been in for almost a decade. Senator McCain has great intentions and his plans can turn the country around. Unfortunately, Great intentions are not always enough, and almost all of the Senator’s plans have to be executed with almost military precision to be effective for this country to see progress. Lucky for us, Senator McCain has been there and done that.