How much would all of these promises cost? Let's begin with the biggest proposal. The
only existing score for the health plan was provided by Kenneth Thorpe, a former
Clinton official and Emory University professor. He at first placed the cost of Mr.
Kerry's health plan alone at about $1 trillion. Mr. Thorpe subsequently revised the
figure downward to $653 billion to account for some rather mysterious savings,
apparently because the health plan's vague statements concerning prevention will
yield miraculously precise lower expenses in later years.
The higher number is more reasonable. But starting with the lower number, the
National Taxpayers' Union Foundation recently estimated that Mr. Kerry's proposals
would increase government spending by $226 billion in his first year in office.
That's about $2,000 per American family, or 10% of the federal budget. While the
report did not include a 10-year score, the construction of one is hardly rocket
science. My own calculations suggest that the total costs of Mr. Kerry's proposals
would be at least $2 trillion from 2005 to 2014.
On Tue, Jul 27, 2004 at 04:58:50PM -0700, Devine, James wrote:
I was wondering: what are Kerry's wild eyed fiscal spending plans? a chicken in
every pot, I hope, or at least pot in every chicken.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
-Original Message-
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of
Carrol Cox
Sent: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 4:39 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Hassett
Michael Perelman wrote:
Hassett of Dow -- not NASDAQ as I carelessly wrote earlier
-- 36,000 fame also has an
outrageous column in the WSJ describing Kerry's wild eyed
fiscal spending plans.
Aww, come on Michael. To be outrageous by WSJ op-ed
standards it would
have to Be Hermann Goering high on speed!
Carrol
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
