Study: Presidential Frontrunners Would Boost Federal Budget
“Presidential contenders have been busy portraying their political differences from others inside and outside of their parties, but when it comes to fiscal policy, ideological labels don’t necessarily apply. That’s just one finding of a comprehensive study from the National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF), which provides cost estimates — based on hard data — for more than 450 of the major candidates’ proposals that would affect the federal budget.”
NTUF looked at proposals by 8 candidates for President, and found:
The eight candidates proposed a combined total of 189 items that would increase federal spending, 24 items that would decrease it, and 238 items whose budgetary impacts are unknown — in addition to dozens of sub-items further detailing program components. The four respective frontrunners in the two parties (John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama), proposed overall fiscal policy agendas whose net effect would raise annual federal outlays between $6.9 billion and $287.0 billion.
The top-tier GOP candidates often portrayed as “conservative” (Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee) actually called for significantly larger spending hikes ($19.5 billion and $54.2 billion, respectively), than the so-called “moderate conservative” (John McCain, $6.9 billion).
Among Democrats, Barack Obama, often described as ideologically more “moderate” than Hillary Clinton, actually has the larger agenda of the two ($287.0 billion vs. $218.2 billion).
Defense-related spending items received the highest proposed spending increases among Republican candidates. Huckabee and Romney, for example, offered $67.2 billion and $40.6 billion, respectively. Among Democrats, Clinton’s biggest boost goes toward health care ($113.6 billion) and Obama’s for economy, transportation, and infrastructure ($105.0 billion).
You can access “2008 Presidential Candidate Spending Analyses” here http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=141Â
2 Comments
1. Ron Paul » Study: P&hellip replies at 30th January 2008, 5:45 pm :
[...] Paul08 wrote an interesting post today on Study: Presidential Frontrunners Would Boost Federal BudgetHere’s a quick excerptNTUF looked at proposals by 8 candidates for President, and found:. The eight candidates proposed a combined total of 189 items that would increase federal spending, 24 items that would decrease it, and 238 items whose budgetary impacts … [...]
2. Presidential election 200&hellip replies at 1st February 2008, 6:54 am :
[...] Presidential Frontrunners Would Boost Federal Budget January 30th, 2008 unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptThe four respective frontrunners in [...]
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