McClatchy: Clinton's 'fiscal responsibility' a sham, critics say

Clinton's 'fiscal responsibility' a sham, critics say
By Matt Stearns | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Tuesday, November 27, 2007


WASHINGTON — New York Sen. Hillary Clinton vows that as president, she'd return the country to "fiscal responsibility," but critics charge that her proposals could blow a hole worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the deficit and even would provide a tax cut to some of America's richest people.

The Democratic front-runner says her torrent of promises — which would cost hundreds of billions of dollars — is paid for.

"What Senator Clinton has said throughout the campaign is that she will pay for every single proposal without increasing the deficit," said Brian Deese, a policy analyst with the Clinton campaign. "Focusing on a commitment to pay-as-you-go would be a dramatic change from the Bush administration."

But pledging not to increase the deficit — as opposed to reducing it — isn't real fiscal responsibility, critics say, questioning Clinton's method of payment for her most prominent, most expensive proposals:

* To pay for her $100-billion-a-year-plus health care plan, Clinton would allow President Bush's tax cuts for those who earn more than $250,000 a year to expire, as scheduled, in 2010.

* To pay for her $25-billion-a-year retirement security plan and for half of her $8 billion-a-year college tuition assistance plan, she'd freeze the estate tax at 2009 levels.

Allowing Bush's tax cuts to expire in order to pay for health care doesn't do anything to restore fiscal responsibility because it's spending money that otherwise would flow into federal coffers to reduce the deficit, said Len Burman, the director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the center-left Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute.

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