McCain's Spending Freeze Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

McCain wants to freeze spending.  Except he'll keep spending $10 billion a month in Iraq.  How does that work?  Here is something we wrote this morning.

McCain claims to be the candidate of fiscal responsibility, but would continue spending $10 billion a month in Iraq with no end in sight.  McCain has set himself up as a fiscal hawk, railing against wasteful government spending, and pledging to both keep taxes low and balance the budget.  This ambitious agenda is undermined by his limitless commitment to Iraq.  Though the size of the federal budget deficit is $400 billion, the United States has appropriated more than $650 billion for the war in Iraq, and direct and indirect costs are projected to run between $1-$3 trillion.  This is all while the Iraqi government maintains a budget surplus of tens of billions of dollars. It is hard to see how McCain will exercise fiscal discipline at home, while he is promoting the same commitments to Iraq that have already put the federal budget under tremendous strain.  [JohnMcCain.com, 2008. National Priorities Project, 10/15/08. Joseph Stiglitz, 2/23/08. USA Today, 10/14/08. GAO, 9/16/08]