And I Thought McCain Was the Fiscal Conservative

I like reading about technology, aviation, poker, travel and politics. So a document I recently read front to back caught me a bit off guard since I generally align my values towards fiscal conservatism and social liberalism with fiscal issues taking precedent.

The document, published by the US Budget Watch titled Promises, Promises: A Fiscal Voter Guide to the 2008 Election, projects the deficit of the United States in 2013 based on today's baseline and the spending proposals put forth by John McCain and Barak Obama. Of course one would assume the projections would show McCain to be the fiscal conservative, but that doesn't bear out based upon how the calculations were carried out. Here is a summary.

	Senator McCain	Senator Obama
Projected Baseline Deficit	-$147 billion	-$147 billion
Tax Policy	-$417 billion to -$485 billion	-$360 billion
Health Care Policy	-$54 billion to -$65 billion	-$65 billion
Energy Policy	$0	$0
Other Spending/Savings	+$291 billion to +$304 billion	+$139 billion

Now this was a real surprise to me, but it did not take into account spending cuts since neither candidate will name specific programs they would cut - only ones they would increase.

Still this gave me pause and makes me wonder if we are even going down the right track as a nation? Will there ever be a candidate that gives it to us straight and is a true fiscal conservative?

One can only hope - and that when he or she does come forward it is not too late.