You can pretty much forget about all these campaign promises, according to my guy Dan Clifton over at the Strategas Group. His two cents:
Yesterday the Bush administration released their updated forecast for the FY'09 budget deficit—$483bn. This forecast does NOT include the assumption of a recession or a material increase in unemployment. If either or both of these two scenarios develop, which is likely, the new president will have to scuttle campaign promised tax cuts and infrastructure spending and look to tax increases to raise revenue. The first group which could see their campaign promises evaporate is the middle class—but we note, the bottom 50% of taxpayers paid just 3% of all income taxes in 2006, leaving little room to cut their taxes further. Knowing this, both campaigns are increasingly looking to entitlement "reform" as a vehicle to increase taxes, much in the same way as President Reagan and Speaker O'Neill did in the early '80s.
Curtis Gwin Jr of WA @ Aug 05, 2008 02:58:21 AM