Dem Promises Vs. Fiscal Reality

It's pretty funny really.

When I clicked on the WashTimes story Democrats can't afford '08 promises, right next to it up popped an ad asking, "Do you know your credit score?" I may not know mine, but I know what the national credit score will be if the Dems get elected: Low and falling lower.

If you thought W was bad for never vetoing a spending bill, think of what will happen when the spending bills are dreamed up in the Oval Office.

All the major Dem Prez-seekers have big plans for spending their way into the White House, and all of them have a popular way to pay for them. I'll let the guy with the monster house in the Carolina woods and the bank account stuffed with other peoples' money stolen earned during his legal career speak for the nearly matched set:

"I've got a way to pay for it," [John Edwards] boasted at the Service Employees International Union conference this week. "Let's get rid of George Bush's tax cuts for people who make over $200,000 a year."

The trouble is, that won't generate nearly enough to pay for Edwards' $120 billion health care plan, or Hil's bundle of new plans estimated to cost $170 billion, or Obama's give-aways, which start with a $50 billion health care plan. (Obama does promise a balanced budget, but good luck doing it if the economy shrinks, as it probably will, following Dem tax hikes on business and the wealthy.)

One little thing Clintbamawards fails to point out is that the Bush cuts are due to expire in 2010 unless Congress extends them -- and the current Congress won't -- so it's hardly truthful for these wannabes to declare their tax cut-cutting ways to be leadership.

And then there's the balancing of the books to deal with. WashTimes pegs the immediate revenue gain from cutting the cuts at $55 billion -- a $55 billion that's being spent, re-spent and recycled by the Dem Prez-seekers, with Hil the money-blowing queen:

At a recent cancer forum, Mrs. Clinton said she would "double" the National Institute of Health's $28 billion budget and the National Cancer Institute's nearly $5 billion budget over 10 years. After the Minnesota bridge collapse last month, she proposed spending $1.5 billion per year for public transit and $10 billion over 10 years to redesign and reconstruct ailing bridges.

Her universal pre-kindergarten plan would cost $5 billion the first year and $10 billion after five years. She has proposed $1 billion to help at-risk mortgage borrowers avoid foreclosure. Smaller-ticket items range from $25 million for cancer-survivor groups to $36 million for school physical-education programs.

Faced with deficits and trying to at least put a happy face on their campaign promises, the successful Dem candidate will be forced to look elsewhere for money. Look for more taxes, more fees, big defense cuts, reductions in democracy-building foreign policies (which are far too threadbare already), other disastrous fiscal and foreign policies,and a rising deficit.

Don't trouble the Dem voters with such harsh realities. After all, they'll be able to feel good and self-righteous about pre-kindergarteners skipping off school for free, even if it means they've just nationalized a perfectly functioning service industry.