Greg Mankiw directs us to David Leonhardt's article on John McCain's chief economic advisor, Doug Holtz-Eakin.  I've known Doug for a number of years and admired his scholarship and his policy work.  It's got to be frustrating to be pushing the McCain economic agenda.  From the article, here's the crux of the problem:

In all, federal taxes now equal about 19 percent of the nation’s economic output, which is in line with the historical average. But the costs of Medicare and Medicaid, on their current path, would require that number to rise to an unmanageable 30 percent, and beyond, in coming decades.

“We as a nation cannot tax our way out of this problem,” Mr. Holtz-Eakin says. “It’s just not an option.”

Glenn Hubbard's and John Cogan's Wall Street Journal op-ed this morning seems persuasive until you consider that their premise is wrong, their math is misleading, and they fail to explain the real reason federal revenues have risen as a share of gross domestic product over the past 25 years.

First the wrong premise -- Hardly anyone is proposing to allow the 2001 and 2003 marginal tax rate cuts, marriage penalty relief, or child tax credit to expire in 2010. Senators Obama and Clinton have repeatedly promised to extend those tax cuts for all but the very wealthy. Senator Clinton defined wealthy as those making over $250,000 a year.

Second, Hubbard and Cogan examine only the past 25 years, starting in fiscal year 1983, when President Reagan's tax cuts first took full effect, driving federal revenues down to 17.5% of GDP from 19.6% when he took office in 1981.

Stan doesn't think his "Fiscal Fitness" column was choreographed to coincide with the Hubbard/Cogan op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal.  But a smart guy like Stan can always rely on a ready foil on the WSJ editorial page.

I object to many parts of the op-ed, but two in particular. 

Troy posted a link to the video of the CRFB dinner's panel discussion on "Are Fiscally Responsible Elections Possible?"  From the lineup, you might have expected this to get interesting.  Mark Halperin was the moderator.  There were two former OMB directors in Leon Panetta (Clinton) and James Miller (Reagan).  There were economic advisors from the three remaining Presidential candidates in Gene Sperling (Clinton), Jeff Liebman (Obama), and Doug Holtz-Eakin (McCain). 

Things did get interesting around the 33 minute mark, when Miller started peddling supply-side gibberish.

Via the Real Time Economics blog, here is a link to a paper by the Brookings-Heritage Fiscal Seminar that recommends that: 

• Congress and the president enact explicit long-term budgets for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security that are sustainable, set limits on automatic spending growth, and reduce the relatively favorable budgetary treatment of these programs compared with other types of expenditures.
• The programs be reviewed on a regular schedule by the Social Security and Medicare Trustees or the Congressional Budget Office to determine whether they will remain within budgeted amounts.
• Significant long-term deviations from budgeted amounts trigger automatic adjustments in benefits, premiums, provider payments, or other revenues. These adjustments could only be over-ridden by an explicit vote of Congress and acceptance by the president.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates yesterday became the latest member of the Bush cabinet to say something that can easily be proven wrong to support the White House.

As reported in the Washington Post, Gates said that a delay in getting the funds requested by the president for Iraq and Afghanistan would soon force him to start laying off employees and ceasing operations at bases.

Gates should know better, and should know that someone would quickly call him out on this.

The fires in southern Calfiornia have become the latest in what is now a long line and steady series of Katrinas and Walter Reeds, that is, a federal program that was deliberately underfunded and its effectiveness seriously...and disastrously...undermined.

My column on nationaljournal.com this week is a serious departure for me. Instead of commenting/explaining/screaming about what others are doing about the budget, I provided what I called the Collender Manifesto, my idea of how fedreal budget decisions should be made. Judging from the responses I've already received, there's plenty here for everyone to hate,. so I must be doing something right. All additional comments much appreciated.

Here's the column for what I hope will be your reading enjoyment.

Wonder no more: the defense budget will be increasing in the years ahead.

The Washington Post has published two articles in the past two days that point the way. On Thursday, Ann Scott Tyson reported that the military was having to pay bonuses to keep mid-level officers. The amount -- $25,000 to $35,000 -- wasn't much by Wall Street standards. But it is one of the best indications yet that personnel costs for the Pentagon will be increasing justso the Pentagon can keep the force it already has.