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Sham?

Say it ain’t so. We’re running a special on Clintons today. It’s all-you-can-stomach.

Here’s McClatchy Newspapers with a couple of left-leaning think tanks who say Hillary’s vote-buying agenda is a sham and an economic trainwreck waiting to happen:   

WASHINGTON – New York Sen. Hillary Clinton vows that as president, she’d return the country to “fiscal responsibility,” but critics charge that her proposals could blow a hole worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the deficit and even would provide a tax cut to some of the nation’s richest people.

The Democratic front-runner says her torrent of promises — which would cost hundreds of billions of dollars — is paid for.

“What Senator Clinton has said throughout the campaign is that she will pay for every single proposal without increasing the deficit,” said Brian Deese, a policy analyst with the Clinton campaign. “Focusing on a commitment to pay as you go would be a dramatic change from the Bush administration.”

But pledging not to increase the deficit — as opposed to reducing it — isn’t real fiscal responsibility, critics say, questioning Clinton’s method of payment for her most prominent, most expensive proposals:

• To pay for her $100-billion-a-year-plus health care plan, Clinton would allow President Bush’s tax cuts for those who earn more than $250,000 a year to expire, as scheduled, in 2010.

• To pay for her $25-billion-a-year retirement security plan and for half of her $8 billion-a-year college tuition assistance plan, she’d freeze the estate tax at 2009 levels.

Allowing Bush’s tax cuts to expire to pay for health care doesn’t do anything to restore fiscal responsibility because it’s spending money that otherwise would flow into federal coffers to reduce the deficit, said Len Burman, the director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the center-left Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute.

“Senator Clinton and President Bush agree on the right level of deficits,” Burman said. “They disagree on whether you should have tax cuts for rich people or health care.”

Lee Farris, a federal tax policy coordinator for United for a Fair Economy, a left-leaning Boston-based advocacy group, said Clinton’s health plan “is not deficit-neutral, it’s deficit-worsening. … That money in 2011 (from the expired tax cuts) is already claimed. When people spend money for programs already agreed to, they’re counting on that money being there in 2011.”

Worse, critics say, Clinton’s pledge to freeze the estate tax at 2009 levels would cost the Treasury hundreds of billions of dollars.

That’s because although the estate tax is set to expire in 2010, it’s due to return in 2011 — at 2001 levels, which are far higher than the 2009 levels that Clinton wants to keep.

Setting the estate tax at 2009 levels would cost the Treasury $29 billion in 2012 and $232 billion by 2017, according to the Congressional Budget Office. From 2012 to 2021, it would cost more than $400 billion, according to an independent analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a center-left Washington policy group.

“Under current law, it’s a tax cut, and it’s going to the wealthiest 2 percent of estates,” said Aviva Aron-Dine, a policy analyst at the center.

The Clinton camp says that it’s unfair to examine her proposals under current law.

I suppose. This really isn’t about what might actually happen under a Clinton administration. It’s about getting elected. 

Topics: Clintons

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:53 am on Wednesday, November 28, 2007

2 Responses to “Sham?”

1. RebeccaH Says:
   November 28th, 2007 at 11:31 am

   critics charge that her proposals could blow a hole worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the deficit and even would provide a tax cut to some of the nation’s richest people.

   In other words, business as usual with the Democrats.

2. Fatty Bolger Says:
   November 28th, 2007 at 4:20 pm

   Deficit, schmeficit. Forget the deficit. The truly scary thing here is that if Hillary has her way, Americans will be more dependent on the government than ever in the history of the nation. The beauracratic ranks will swell, and the federal government will have control over your healthcare (and therefore, your health). Suddently I don’t feel so well…

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