The Budget According to McCain: Part I

The non-defense side of the discretionary budget totals around $540.8 billion. So even if McCain's defense budget doesn't get any bigger, he'd still be looking at convincing Congress to slash 18.5 percent of the funding for everything else in the discretionary budget -- things like veterans' health benefits, highway construction, elementary and secondary education, and immigration services. Or he could make much deeper cuts in just a few programs. He's leaving vague exactly how he'd accomplish the goal, saying he first wants to do a thorough review of government programs after he's elected.

A Trillion Here, a Trillion There
At a more fundamental level, McCain seriously overstates the rate at which the size of government has grown.

McCain (April 20): My friend, we have increased the size of government by some 40 percent just in the last few years. By some 40 percent, by trillions. By trillions, we have increased the size of government.

The size of the budget has increased by 40 percent, but McCain exaggerates in saying that has happened "in the last few years." According to the Office of Management and Budget, after adjusting for inflation, federal expenditures increased by 40 percent between 1999 and 2009. But 40 percent doesn't represent an increase of "trillions." Measured in inflation-adjusted dollars, total expenditures in 2009 are expected to be about $2.45 trillion. The last year that the budget was "trillions" smaller: 1951. Even without adjusting for inflation, it has been 21 years since the budget was trillions smaller. To our ears, 21 seems like more than a "few years." And 58 sounds like rather a lot.

But McCain wasn't finished with his trillion-dollar exaggerations. A few moments later, he added:

McCain (April 20): So why would you not think that if we stopped that increase in the size of government, in the form of a $1 trillion or so, that we can't balance the budget?

It's certainly true that cutting spending by $1 trillion would result in a balanced budget. Of course, the total discretionary budget (including the entire defense budget) is just a little more than $1.2 trillion, so McCain just has to convince Congress to slash discretionary spending by 83 percent. Alternatively, McCain could convince Congress to couple more modest cuts in discretionary spending with deep reductions in popular programs like Social Security and Medicare. Historically, wagers that either of those things would happen have been imprudent investments.

Republished with permission from factcheck.org .