I’ve argued before that McCain lacks a true understanding of the issues facing the nation. This is manifest in many different ways. One way is through the quick use of emotion when addressing the issue. On immigration, McCain has repeatedly said that he will not deport the parents of soldiers in spite of their illegal status. This kind of emotional pandering is intended to shame critics of his policies.

Another way that McCain manifests his lack of policy substance is through addressing tangential issues and not the main issue. One of these issues is fiscal discipline. When talking about fiscal discipline, instead of discussing spending restraints, McCain addresses the tangential issue of earmarks. Don’t get me wrong, earmarks are a problem and it should be addressed. However, looking at the data, the focus on earmarks as a form of fiscal restraint is seriously lacking.

Simply put earmarks represent less than one percent of the federal budget. Looking at the budget and earmarks from 2005 (the most recent data I could find for both), earmarks represented just a drop in the bucket of the federal budget. For 2005, the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Budget and Management say the federal budget was $2.47 Trillion. In 2005, the Office of Management and Budget says there were 13,492 earmarks totaling $18,944,327,000 for appropriations accounts. Now, that number of dollars appropriated for earmarks is a significant number and likely represents the amount of corruption in Congress. However, for all the wrongs that earmarks represent, they account for less that 1% of the federal budget, Thus, even eliminating earmarks completely will do little to solve the spending problems in the federal budget.

McCain has said in debates that he will make famous the man who puts in the first earmark in a bill that comes to McCain’s desk. That sounds nice. McCain gets to act indignant over earmarks and show us all how much he hates them. However, while McCain is searching high and low for earmarks in spending bills, he will have missed the true substance of fiscal restraint. Bloated agency budgets will pass by him. Duplicative programs will find his approval. Entitlement programs will receive no scrutiny. McCain, for all his bluster over earmarks will not have made the hard decisions to truly reign in spending. He will have spent his efforts on something, while politically popular, that will do little to control the spending problems in Congress.

That is not fiscal conservatism. Indeed, it elevates form over substance and demonstrates a lack of seriousness on McCain's part.

Labels: fiscal discipline