Editor’s note: This month, the two major candidates for president or their representatives respond to a Denver Post request for their plans on tackling four major issues. Today, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain outline their platforms on the economy.
It’s hard to know at this point whether the government’s $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan will have the intended effect — to slow the economic slide that is becoming more painful every day.
But one thing seems certain: The sheer enormity of the outlay will shape the next president’s administration in a big way.
The cold, hard reality is that it’s unlikely the next president, be it Barack Obama or John McCain, will have the money to pursue the kind of agenda they’ve envisioned.
Obama has discussed delaying his energy plans while McCain has spoken of a partial spending freeze and ending earmarks.
Thus far, neither candidate has offered a detailed plan about how he’ll deal with this country’s new economic reality come January.
The pieces published here take on, in broad terms, the ways in which the candidates will address the economy.
Are either of these an approach that will reverse the country’s economic problems? That remains to be seen.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in a report early in September that the federal budget deficit would jump by $246 billion to $407 billion this year. And that was before the bailout was approved.
The last time the U.S. dug itself out of a deep financial hole and got into the black was 1998, when the federal government recorded a budget surplus of $63 billion. It would seem elementary, but the surplus came about as a result of increased revenues and decreased spending.
Economists and scholars have long debated exactly how much blame — or credit — can be ascribed to presidents where the economy at large is concerned. The tools available to the president are limited but important.
We hope these articles, submitted by the Obama and McCain campaigns, will help readers discern how the candidates will approach the economic landscape in these turbulent times.
Alicia Caldwell is a member of the Denver Post editorial board.
