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s not a gimmick of course is to propose what likely amounts to 2 5 tn or more in tax cuts plus spending increases with the explanation that it will all be fine because there will be unspecified spending cuts one week before hillary russert was blessed with the sacred presence of saint mccain of the straight talk mccain thinks it would be dandy if american troops remain in iraq for the next 100 years he also advocates the development and deployment of theater and national missile defenses enlarging the size of our armed forces to meet new challenges to our security as requirements expand in the global war on terrorism so must our army navy air force marines and coast guard be reconfigured to meet these new challenges john mccain thinks it is especially important to increase the size of the army and marine corps to defend against the threats we face today modernizing american armed forces involves procuring advanced weapons systems that will help rapidly and decisively defeat any adversary and protect american lives it also requires addressing force protection needs to make sure that america s combat personnel have the best safety and survivability equipment available he d also like to permanently repeal the alternative minimum tax amt make the bush income and investment tax cuts permanent reform and make permanent the research and development r d tax credit although mccain tries to make it look bigger with promises to ban various types of taxes that don t currently exist it s a modest plan by current gop standards and that s remarkable because after all in pledging to make the bush cuts permanent and eliminate the amt mccain is actually promising substantially larger tax cuts in an era of a large and growing deficit than bush promised while running with a surplus yet his tax cuts are the lightest of any republican candidate i won t actually quote from the discussion of taxes which is somewhat longer than for other hopefuls but just note that russert is interested solely in mccain s admittedly desperate attempts to reconcile his votes against the bush tax cuts with his current pledge to make them permanent the potential effects of making those cuts permanent is never raised when giuliani appeared on dec 9 he had not yet unveiled his recent tax cut plan which would make the bush tax cuts look positively lilliputian he had made vague commitments to keep america on offense in the terrorists war on us and cut taxes and reform the tax code here is the only tax discussion which took place mr russert would you pledge to balance the budget if you were elected president mr giuliani sure i would make the goal i would make it a goal of mr russert but not a pledge mr giuliani i don t do pledges i didn t do a pledge on taxes i stated my intention i said my intention is to lower taxes i have a record of lowering taxes my intention would be to balance the budget i have a record of eight balanced budgets in a city where we had some serious economic and financial difficulties at various times and we figured out a way to balance the budget so i have a really good record on that fred thompson who goes in for button points in a big way in his white papers wants to be prepared to increase the core defense budget up to 4 5 of gdp to support the expansion modernization and increased readiness of u s military forces build a million member ground force capable of handling peacetime and wartime tasks without wearing out the troops and increasing u s vulnerability increase the pay and benefits of our military personnel and the care of our veterans to enhance recruitment retention and quality of life increase the u s navy fleet to at least 325 ships to increase mission capability across the full spectrum of operations and maintain the ability to project power globally complete the modernization of the u s air force to ensure continued tactical air dominance over all potential adversaries and the ability to project power globally at the same time lets permanently extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanently repeal the death tax repeal the alternative minimum tax reduce the corporate tax rate permanently extend small business expensing update and simplify depreciation schedules the last one which actually costs the irs relatively little money is original and might even qualify as wonky if the whole thing wasn t done with such obvious contempt for the basic wonk skill of addition thompson also complains that congress has consistently refused to balance the budget and address the deficit and does say he will balance the budget those magical unspecified spending cuts is there anything they can t do we may never know because when thompson did his mtp gig on nov 4 the subject never came up five out of five mainstream republicans have proposal that would blast holes in the federal budget bigger than the iceberg made in the titanic and not one got a single question on it ron paul actually was pressed fairly hard on his plan to eliminate the irs confirming that he is definitely not part of the in crowd however hillary and ron paul weren t the only ones to get a grilling on their fiscal soundness here are some excerpts from the interviews with biden and edwards no similar questions were asked of richardson or obama and i couldn t find a transcript for dodd mr russert yeah here s what you say about energy biden would make a substantial national commitment by dramatically increasing investment in energy and climate change research technology health care expand health insurance for children relieve the families and business of the burden of expensive catastrophic cases education expand help for families by increasing tax deductions for tuition payments expand pell grants to cover the average tuition to public colleges for low income families expand national service programs to help high school students so they can earn money for college homeland security take back one year of the tax cuts for americans who make over a million dollars and put this money in a dedicated homeland security and public safety trust fund crime biden s priority is restoring the nearly 2 billion that s been cut from state and local law enforcement all noble goals for democrats but it s more money more money more money sen biden yeah but it s mr russert where you going to get it sen biden i ll tell you where you get it first of all we re going to end this war it s 100 100 billion a year we re spending number one it s 100 billion eliminate the tax cuts for people making over a million bucks and they ll go for it they they didn t ask for it they know they don t need it that s 85 billion bucks a year mr russert but that goes to the trust fund you still have sen biden no you have you have mr russert energy health care education sen biden no i got it i got it let s go through them because i think you re asking obviously a fair question eliminate the the the tax break for investment on dividends and which is 195 billion is is is the cost of that and begin to do for example on the crime side it s pointed out in my crime bill for every single dollar we spent we saved the public 6 6 dollars we have to have there s a fancy word down here a little new paradigm down here in washington as my republican friends like to say investment in these areas saves money for example for 26 billion a year i can insure every single solitary child under the age of 18 in the united states america doesn t have health insurance for 3 billion a year i can double the investment we have on alternative energy sources and research for a billion dollars a year i can put 50 000 more cops back on the street and so this is where we re we re talking manageable numbers but the larger point here in my view the larger point here and i think distinguishes me from democrats i think we got to start looking at the direct savings that come from the investments we make if we make an investment in wellness we save hundreds of billions of dollars here and so we got to look at it differently tim but you need start up dollars the place i d start off with is somewhere over 220 billion a year by the tax cuts and ending the war and by the way all you need is 10 billion a year for the next five years to fund every single solitary aspect of the 9 11 commission report and i would only use 10 of the 85 billion from the top 1 percent for that purpose mr russert but senator we have a deficit we have social security and medicare looming the number of people on social security and medicare is now 40 million people it s going to be 80 million in 15 years would you consider looking at those programs age of eligibility sen biden absolutely mr russert cost of living put it all on the table sen biden the answer is absolutely you have to you know it s one of the things that my you know the political advisers say to me is whoa don t touch that third look the american people aren t stupid it s a real simple proposition mr russert and we are back senator edwards friday you spoke to the democratic national committee about health care i want to show that clip and come back and talk about it videotape dnc winter meeting friday sen edwards can we finally say we stand now and forever for every single man woman and child in america having health care universal health care we will leave no one behind we will not allow a single family or a single child in america to not have health care coverage and to not have the health care that they need and deserve end videotape mr russert universal health care noble goal but that s 47 million more men women and children how much would that cost and what kind of plan would you propose sen edwards it d cost between 90 and 120 billion a year once it s once it s fully implemented i will on this show and tomorrow be laying out details of a universal health care plan basically we start with the problem which are we want to get make sure that the 47 million people who don t have health care coverage are covered immediately second we want to do deal with the costs that middle class families who may have health care coverage but are worried about paying for it worried about keeping it premiums are up 90 percent literally 90 percent just over the last few years so i want to do something to bring costs down for others and we want to create some efficiencies that allow competition and and then finally here here s the bottom line we want to make sure everybody s covered we want to help middle class families with the costs we want we want to try to create competition that doesn t exist today and i think the best most effective way to do that i which is what my plan will be as i lay it out tomorrow is we take the 46 million 47 million people who don t have health care coverage we expand medicaid we provide subsidies for people who don t have coverage we ask employers to play a bigger role which means they either have to have coverage or they have to buy into what we re calling health markets we re going to create health markets all across the country which will help provide some of these efficiencies one of the choices by the way available in these health markets is the government plan so people who like the idea of a single payer insurer health plan that is actually one of the alternatives that people can choose they ll be allowed to choose we expand schip we expand medicaid the bottom line is we re asking everybody to share in the responsibility of making health care work in this country employers those who are in the medical insurance business employees the american people everyone will have to contribute in order to make this work mr russert would you be willing to raise taxes in order to help pay for this sen edwards yes we ll have to raise taxes the the only way you can pay for a health care plan from 90 that costs anywhere from 90 billion to 120 billion is there has to be a revenue source the revenue source for paying for the plan that i m proposing is is first we get rid of george bush s tax cuts for people who make over 200 000 a year this plan in and of itself creates some efficiencies and helps to reduce the cost of health care globally in america and then finally we need to do a much better job of collecting the taxes that are that are already owed and a very specific example of something we should do we should have brokerage houses report the capital gains that that people are incurring because we re losing billions and billions of dollars in tax revenue and billions and billions of dollars from capital gains not being reported mr russert but you d be willing to increase taxes to provide health care sen edwards yes absolutely mr russert what about social security and medicare there s 40 million people on social security and medicare now the next 15 years it s going to go to 80 million the chairmen of the federal reserve say if we do nothing you ll have to raise taxes by a third and cut all the rest of government by 50 percent in order to meet those demands and expectations of the entitlement programs sen edwards yes well we have a huge challenge on this front i think the starting place is medicare not social security simply because social security is stronger longer significantly longer than medicare so let me if i can start with with medicare you know the the medicare has very serious short term intense financial problems and there and there are things we can do that we re not doing which is we ought to have much better chronic care management than we have today we ought to be investing in a serious and systemic way in preventative care which we re not doing today and we have significant fraud and abuse in the medicare system it s every study that s been done demonstrates that so i think there are things we can do to strengthen medicare and we ought to be using like for example in my universal health care plan we create these health markets which require providers to to compete against each other we ought to be using the power of the federal government to negotiate better prices in medicare and it was a it was a foolish thing in the medicare prescription drug law that was passed which i voted against to not allow the government to use its market power to negotiate better prices and those are all things we can do that will help help strengthen medicare one consequence of this conduct was well described by matthew yglesias in a recent discussion of one of russert s village confederates fiscal responsibility as defined by the washington post means something like new spending must be financed by unpopular tax hikes unless it s spending on a war or the military or spending proposed by republicans also budget deficits are an acute problem if a democrat is president or if they re forecast to occur far in the future as a result of social security that obviously is a political framework designed to make progressive governance impossible while simultaneously giving lip service to the desirability of spending money on important prio...