Sunday, October 12, 2008

Comparing Cost of Obama & McCain Major Policies

1) Tax Changes:
According to: http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/11/news/economy/candidates_taxproposals_tpc/index.htm Mcain's Tax changes cost us: $4.5 Trillion over ten years.
Obama's Tax Changes cost the US Budget: $3.3 Trillion over ten years.

Whoa. Before i go on to the next item, i need to make some commentary here. Both tax changes put the US budget FURTHER into debt by TRILLIONS of dollars. These are the choices that the two party system offers me?

2) Healthcare Plans:
According to: http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/pm126
McCain's Healthcare Plan costs $1.3 Trillion over 10 years.
Obama's Healthcare Plan costs $1.6 Trillion over 10 years

3) Education Plans:
According to: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93004032
McCain's Education Plan Costs: Nothing. No Change in actual Spending.
Obama's Plan Costs $18 Billion dollars a year or a total of $180 Billion over ten years

4) Energy Policy:
According to: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/17671aa4-2fe8-4008-859f-0ef1468e96f4.htm?sid=google&t=lexington
McCain's Energy Policy costs at least $2 Billion a year or a total of $20 Billion over 10 years (plus a one time 300 million dollar reward for a high efficiency hybrid vehicle)
According to: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/10/09/403124.aspx
Obama's Energy Policy costs $150 Billion over 10 years

I do need to comment here that the McCain Energy Policy is somewhat vague. It is not outlined in specifics and it is tough to really get a comprehensive number to go with his proposals.

5) Iraq / Afghanistan Strategy: No way to figure this out from quick internet searches. I guess we would just have to assume this is not possible to compare the two. I also looked for defense spending and there are all kinds discussions. McCain has actually been successful in cutting pork out of defense budgets of the past. Obama claims he will cut defense spending. The conventional wisdom is that neither candidate will be able to cut the DOD budget.

Total Comparison:
McCain's Policies represent approximately (4.5t + 1.3t + 0 + 2.3b) = 5.8023 Trillion in added cost over ten years
Obama's Policies represent approximately (3.3t + 1.6t + 180b + 150b) = 5.23 Trillion in added cost over ten years.
Unbelievable!

They both offer vague ideas about how they would pay for some of these policies, but the truth is, there is no way to actually accomplish this kind of spending. No way. We have a shrinking credit rating with the world and a slowing GDP (almost stopped). This kind of pandering is what we have come to expect from the broken two party system.As a comparison, realize that the US budget will be 400 billion dollars in the red (a record deficit by the way) whenever the next POTS takes office.

Also, for comparison, according to: http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/bg2110.cfm
The DOD budget is around $500 billion for year 2009 or $5 trillion over 10 years...

Also, for comparison, according to:
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home
The Iraq war costs $340 million per day or $1.2 trillion over 10 years...

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