Doesn't Add Up

John McCain relies on fantasy budgeting in his economic plan:

Yet here's the fanciful proposition John McCain wants us to swallow: that he can extend the Bush tax cuts, pile other tax breaks and revenue reductions atop them - and still balance the federal budget in four years.

The deficit in the final budget of his first term would be around $440 billion if the Bush tax cuts are extended and the Alternative Minimum Tax is indexed for inflation, according to Congressional Budget Office figures. Add the extra $47 billion that the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates as the net cost of McCain's various tax-cut plans, and the deficit would be about $490 billion for that fiscal year.
[...]
"It's preposterous," says Jim Horney, director of federal fiscal policy for the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. As a round-number illustration of the difficulty, Horney notes that $400 billion would be more than 80 percent of the amount projected for fiscal year 2013 domestic discretionary spending.

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