10/09/2008

Presidential Candidate Spending Plans

Here the National Taxpayer's Union estimates for McCain (+$92 Billion/year) and Obama (+$293 Billion/year). A $200 billion difference in spending is pretty big difference.

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posted by John Lott at 12:05 AM

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Certainly an alarming statistic at first, but it's easy to see how that's possible when you consider that McCain is essentially eliminating government spending on health care. So far, these figures show that Obama plans to spend tenfold more than McCain on health care; honestly, is there anything wrong with that? This does not appear to me to be an example of frivolous spending.

10/09/2008 10:34 AM  
Blogger The Right Guy said...

Ben:
It depends on your position on government run healthcare or any other socialist program the government runs or in this case will run as well. John can correct me if I am wrong, but it is an observation that insurance in general increases demand because people see it as a free benefit and abuse it and lowers supply because there are more people using existing services. One point worth mentioning is that 70% of people in Britain take out a secondary insurance policy so they can get treatment when they need it. If government run healthcare is so efficient and good, why should someone pay more so they get better access and treatment? For a program that is supposed to give equality in healthcare, it would seem it creates inequality in application. The problem is that social programs adjust outcomes and expectations to the lowest common denominator.

10/09/2008 4:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I definitely see what you're saying, Jim. However, I am of the opinion that everyone is deserving of at least some form of health care, even if absolute equality is not necessarily achieved. I think Obama comes closer to this goal, and this clearly hits the budget a bit harder as a result. For me, McCain's plan would merely continue the inaccessibility to healthcare for some (or even exacerbate it, according to some analysts). But, I suppose I'm getting off-topic a bit!

10/09/2008 10:08 PM  

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