Actual economist-type Jared Bernstein has done the dirty work of digging through John McCain's economic agenda and what he's come up with isn't pretty. McCain's offering a mixture of massive revenue cuts (he would "shrink federal revenues by 25 percent over 10 years"), small spending reforms (some earmarks), and hints at larger cuts. And where will those come? Entitlements. Or, they would if they were going to happen. But they won't. Doug Holtz-Eakin may be the mensch Jared paints him as, but slicing up entitlements is an impossible political task when you've got a president committed to spending cuts and thoughtful about the politics that block their path. McCain is neither. He's as interested in economic policy as Benjamin Braddock was in plastics. It's something he should be interested in, something smart folks tell him to be interested in, but fundamentally, it's just not his bag. And the mixture of a radical and unpopular economic agenda with a president totally uncommitted to its passage means we may as well write the thing off.
