It’s no shock that John McCain’s statements about economics are clueless, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that his uninformed views are also quite radical.

In a burst of Reagan-style policy making, McCain has offered to balance the budget by decreasing federal expenditures. In a campaign event in Connecticut this week, McCain responded to a question by stating:

“When Ronald Reagan came to office,’’ he said, noting that few in the audience were old enough to remember, “we had 10 percent unemployment, 20 percent interest rates, and 10 percent inflation, if I’ve got those numbers right. That was when Ronald Reagan came to office in 1980. And so what did we do? We didn’t raise taxes, and we didn’t cut entitlements. What we did was we cut taxes and we put in a stimulus to the economy, and by the way, Jack Kennedy also did that as well – and so my answer to it is a growing economy. And I think you best grow the economy by the most efficient use of the tax dollar.’’

As The Huffington Post has rightly noted, though, “the deficit nearly tripled during the Reagan presidency, partly due to tax cuts and increases in military spending.”

McCain’s supply-side economic plan doesn’t just end with decreased spending — he parrots the failed 1980′s era Reagan policies of huge tax cuts and prolonged military spending, with no plan on how to balance the budget. Newsweek’s Daniel Gross says it all: “McCain’s fiscal program is either a joke or a fantasy.”

Perhaps McCain believes that “Reagan really did show that deficits don’t matter.“

Today, the Center for American Progress Action Fund released a report in conjunction with Women’s Voices Women Vote looking at the hard realities currently facing unmarried women. Unmarried women unfortunately make less money, have fewer assets, face decreased job security and have less access to health care than their single male, or married female, counterparts.

This study uncovers some striking data:

– Economic Vulnerability: More than 40 percent of unmarried women have household incomes of less than $30,000 a year. That’s much worse than married women and married men, and worse than unmarried men.

– Less Pay at Work: Unmarried women make less than others for the same work, and earn only 56 cents to every dollar a married man earns.

– Increased Responsibility for Children: The responsibility for taking care of children often falls on unmarried women: There are 12.2 million single-parent families in America, and more than 10 million are headed by single mothers.

– Missing Health Care: Unmarried women are more likely than other Americans to have no health insurance. They were twice as likely to be unable to afford medical care in the past year as women who were married.

– Reliance on Social Security: More than 25 percent of unmarried women rely on Social Security as their only source of income.

The looming 2008 election provides a unique opportunity to do more than just highlight the troubles confronting unmarried women, but to also suggest a progressive agenda for policy reform. For the past eight years, unmarried woman have felt the pains brought on by the Bush Administration’s snub of the middle class. The CAPAF report suggests that unmarried women’s lives can be improved by:

–Expanding Opportunity by Rewarding Work: equal pay, earned income tax credits, minimum wage increases, college affordability, energy policies, job creation, education promotion.

A New, Stronger Social Contract: child care, renewed FMLA, social security protection, universal 401K accounts, affordable housing.

Resolving the War in Iraq: diplomacy, global responsibility, redeployment.

Improved Health Care for All: Universal coverage, contraception and reproductive health education, the right to choose.

Comprising more than one quarter of those voting in 2008, it is the responsibility of our next president to address the needs of America’s single, divorced and widowed women as we break free from eight years of conservative, regressive policies. American women demand it.