Big Promises Bump Into Budget Realities

That analysis excludes some expensive proposals, including promises to close the gap in prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients (estimated to cost about $400 billion over 10 years); to introduce government-funded health insurance for the uninsured (which the campaign estimates would cost as much as $65 billion a year); and to make large-scale investments in energy, education and infrastructure, which Obama dubbed his "competitiveness agenda" during a speech this week in Flint, Mich.

The analysis also excludes a possible reduction in corporate tax rates, which Obama first mentioned in an interview this week with the Wall Street Journal. Campaign officials said Obama would pay for the rate reduction by closing corporate tax loopholes.

Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee said the senator has identified ways to cover the costs of his proposals, starting with savings of $90 billion a year from ending the Iraq war. "All of his programs are paid for and the deficit would come down" from where it is today, Goolsbee said.

McCain has proposed even bigger tax reductions, including an extension of all the Bush tax cuts, permanent limits on the AMT and a 10 percent reduction in the corporate tax rate. All told, McCain's tax plans would cost the Treasury more than $1.1 trillion during his first term, and would increase the national debt by $4.3 trillion by 2018, according to the Tax Policy Center analysis.

McCain does vow to balance the budget, but he proposes to do it by slashing spending projections for troops abroad, domestic programs and health care -- reductions unlikely to pass muster with a Democratic Congress.

"They're promising the world with ways to pay for it that are really suspect," Bob Williams, one of the authors of the Tax Policy Center study, said of both candidates.

Despite his promises of tax cuts, fiscal analysts note that McCain has a reputation as a budget-cutter. He voted against the Bush tax cuts he now proposes to extend and refuses to request funding for local programs known as earmarks. He has been talking about the need to reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid since the race began more than a year ago.

"I suspect that McCain will be more constrained and will have a veto power over the Democratic Congress," said Alice M. Rivlin, who served as the first director of the Congressional Budget Office, as well as one of Clinton's budget directors. "If it's Obama, the Democratic Congress is going to be pushing for spending and it's awfully hard to rein in your own folks. No Democrat is going to want to go to war with Congress."

Budget experts also note that progress on the deficit has often come with divided government because both parties can shoulder blame equally. And there is likely to be plenty of blame to go around if the candidates make good on their promise to tackle long-term deficits in the retirement programs. Few options are likely to be popular with voters: Obama has discussed raising the cap on the Social Security payroll tax, hitting higher-income families with another tax hike. McCain has proposed charging wealthy seniors higher premiums for Medicare prescription-drug benefits.

G. William Hoagland, who worked for years as a budget adviser to top Senate Republicans, predicted that the nation's money troubles will be a painful and persistent headache for whoever next occupies the White House. "The platter is so full for the next president," Hoagland said, "I think at some point the reality will start to set in that there have been a lot of promises made that aren't going to be addressed very quickly."