Welcome, Mr. President: Here's the tab

While I don't normally get too political here, I do that other places, the title of this thread is the title of a CNN article that fits the name of this blog. It's clear both Obama and McCain have some unrealistic expectations...

Those concerns are already baked into the fiscal cake. But when the next president takes office, he could end up worsening the debt picture if some of his proposals don't pan out perfectly.

Relative to current law, which assumes all tax cuts expire by 2011, the Tax Policy Center in its most recent analysis estimates that both candidates' plans may increase the long-term deficit significantly: McCain by $5 trillion over 10 years and Obama by $3.4 trillion.

The numbers look a lot better when compared to current policy - which assumes today's tax cuts likely will be extended after 2010. McCain's plan would increase the deficit by $600 billion while Obama's would actually raise an additional $800 billion in revenue, according to the Tax Policy Center's estimates.

But two caveats: None of these numbers include the costs of the candidates' health care proposals, which run as high as $1.3 trillion for McCain and $1.6 trillion for Obama. Nor do they account for built-in spending obligations on Social Security and Medicare. "Neither candidate has proposed a plan that will bring in enough revenue to cover projected spending," Williams said.

So that means to bring the budget back into greater balance, they'd need to slash government spending.

Both candidates have said they would cut spending in a variety of ways. For instance, they have said they will save money when the country withdraws from Iraq. Experts say that doing so may curb future spending - i.e., not incur more debt down the line - but doesn't reduce existing debt. And in the near term, the cost of drawing down troops may actually cause a short-term increase in the deficit.

And both candidates have said they'd eliminate or reduce earmark spending. But those types of promises may be hard to keep since it's not up to the president alone to decide, Williams said. "We know how much luck presidents have in getting spending cuts through."