Promises, promises, Obama can't keep them all

LA Times/Houston Chronicle:

In more than a year of campaigning, Democratic Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has made a long list of promises for new federal programs costing tens of billions of dollars, many of them aimed at protecting people from the pain of a souring economy.

But if he wins the presidency, Obama will be hard-pressed to keep his blueprint intact.

Budget analysts are skeptical that Obama's agenda could survive in the face of large federal budget deficits and the difficulty of making good on his plan to raise new revenues by closing tax loopholes, ending the Iraq war and cutting low-priority spending.

Like predecessors who also had to square far-reaching promises with inescapable budget realities, analysts say, Obama might need to jettison pieces of Obama-ism.

"I don't think it all adds up," said Isabel Sawhill, an official in President Clinton's Office of Management and Budget, of Obama's spending plans.

"There will definitely need to be a recalibration of these proposals once someone is in office," said Sawhill, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "The fiscal situation just isn't going to permit doing what Senator Obama or anyone else would like."

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Among other proposals, Obama has said he would strengthen the nation's bridges and dams ($6 billion a year), help make men better fathers ($50 million a year) and aid Iraqis displaced by the war ($2 billion in one-time spending). Last week, he pledged to give religious and community groups $500 million a year to provide summer education to low-income children.

Other proposals are more costly. Obama wants to extend health insurance to more people (part of a $65-billion-a-year health plan), develop cleaner energy sources ($15 billion a year), curb home foreclosures ($10 billion in one-time spending) and add $18 billion a year to education spending.

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The total price tag of Obama's plans, according to his campaign, is $130 billion a year. On top of that, Obama is proposing a middle-class tax cut of about $80 billion a year.

Obama's campaign says the new spending would be more than offset by cuts to existing federal programs and other savings.

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The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center examined Obama's plans to eliminate tax loopholes and said it could not confirm the projected savings.

"If you look at official revenue estimates, the numbers come out to be less than half of what they (Obama's campaign staff) 3/8 say they're going to raise," said Len Burman, director of the center and a former Treasury official in the Clinton administration.

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His tax proposals do not add up either. He wants to get more out of the top one percent of tax payers who are already paying over a third of total income tax receipts. He want say what percentage of the total income taxes they should pay, but he should be required to answer that question. One thing should be clear. Congress has no discipline when it comes to spending cuts and he is not going to be in a position to change that.