John McCain's Economic Plan: Pure Imagination

John McCain released a thirteen-page economic plan [PDF] that is comprised of all the same economic policies he has already bandied about but wrapped with a new name and pretty cover. It is, however, missing the original slogan: "Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination."

The silly gas tax holiday -- which all the experts call a "gimmick", a "joke", and "pandering" -- conflicts with his stated support to boost funding for public transportation since gas taxes pay for -- wait for it -- public transportation, and infrastructure like roads and highways -- those things that public buses use. Even fellow Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) acknowledged that the gas tax holiday would "drive up the deficit."

Even McCain's own hand-picked economists his campaign touts as supporting his economic plan "reject 'two big chunks.'" Think Progress:

McCain campaign has released “a statement signed by over 300 professional economists” who support the senator’s economic plan. But as the Politico’s Avi Zenilman points out, the 300 conservative economists who endorse McCain’s plan still reject “two big chunks” of the senator’s proposal: “the gas tax holiday and his promise to balance the budget by 2013.”

McCain continues to claim that eliminating earmarks will help get the U.S. towards a balanced budget yet still cannot come up with specific cuts. John McCain claimed in the past that he would "veto every bill with earmarks," but when presented with the fact that American aid to Israel is labeled as an "earmark" by the Congressional Research Service, his campaign backed off the absolutist claim. In any event, when pressed about specific earmarks he would cut, John McCain came up blank.

And what kind of Bush/McCain economic plan would it be without billions in tax cuts for the rich that John McCain opposed before he supported it. When the McCain campaign is not blatantly distorting the tax plan offered by Senator Barack Obama, they distort their own and claim, like Bush did in 2000, that his cuts would benefit working Americans.

McCain says he will balance the budget by 2013 but how does he square that with his Iraq policy? John McCain claims we can stay in Iraq for decades in the mold of our garrisons in Germany and Korea (which he flip-flopped on). Yet, in John McCain's economic plan, he claims the "savings" from "victory" in Afghanistan and Iraq.

When it comes to getting the numbers to add up right, Josh Marshall paraphrases the McCain plan as "we'll get back to you on that."

Now, the general routine is the face of this kind of candidate announcement is that journalists and economists look at the numbers to see if they add up. In most cases, the exercises generates fairly unsatisfying contradictory opinions, with some experts saying one thing and other experts another.

But here's the thing. McCain doesn't have any numbers. None. Not vague numbers of fuzzy math. He just says he's going to do it. Any other candidate would get laughed off the stage with that kind of nonsense or more likely reporters just wouldn't agree to give them a write up. But this is all over the place.

Sing it one more time, John: "... come with me, then you'll be in a woooooorld of pure imagination..."

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