Kelly Ayotte, the front-runner for the Republican senate nomination in New Hampshire, likes to portray herself as a fierce fiscal hawk. “The spend-a-thon in Washington must stop. That means stopping anymore spending that adds to our deficit and debt,” she has said, adding that “spending cuts must be made with a hatchet, not a scalpel.”

But if her sit-down with the Foster’s Daily Democrat’s editorial board is any indication, Ayotte is a bit clueless when it comes to the federal budget, as her prime deficit reduction strategy would actually result in the deficit increasing:

One way Ayotte wants to cut the deficit is repeal the $900 billion health care reform bill. She noted many components don’t kick in until after the presidential election in 2012. “That’s why it’s important to keep the repeal effort alive,” she said. “What we owe is not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. It’s an American issue.”

Of course, as Matt Finkelstein notes, “according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years (and up to $1.3 trillion by 2029).” So repealing it will have the opposite effect of that which Ayotte claims she’s going for.

But this performance is really in line with the rest of Ayotte’s deficit peacockery. In an op-ed in the Nashua Telegraph — entitled “Time to stop the spendathon in Washington” — Ayotte outlined five steps that she thinks will fix the deficit. The first, a balanced budget amendment, is a pipe dream that even Republicans realize will be horribly destructive for the economy.

The next, repealing what’s left of the stimulus bill, only cuts spending in the short term and would necessitate repealing money dedicated to middle class tax cuts, thus increasing taxes on the middle class. She would also end earmarks, which amount to less than one percent of the federal budget, and add a “sunset” provision to federal programs, even though discretionary spending programs already have to be renewed every year.

Finally, she would indiscriminately cut every federal agency by 20 percent. I’m curious if she’s really in favor of downsizing the Defense Department, border enforcement, the FBI, the Coast Guard, and a whole host of other vital programs like food inspection or port security, by 20 percent overnight.

Note that none of Ayotte’s solutions have anything to do with the structural causes of the deficit. They’re simply the kinds of ideas conservatives like to tout even when the deficit isn’t a concern. If this is the best she can come up with, no one should be talking Ayotte’s deficit-cutting credentials seriously.

Earlier this week, a host of Republican pundits tried to claim that no members of their party are proposing to privatize Social Security. “There’s no Republican, basically, standing up and saying that, and we haven’t for a very long time,” said Republican talking head Ed Rollins.

Of course, plenty of Republicans have proposed just that, most notably Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), whose Roadmap for America includes the creation of personal Social Security accounts. Kentucky’s Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul said “let young working people opt out, the sooner the better, let ‘em opt out and get a better investment,” while Indiana’s GOP Senate candidate Dan Coats has endorsed a Social Security plan “along the lines of what Paul Ryan has proposed.”

And then there’s Pat Toomey, the Republican nominee for the Senate in Pennsylvania. During an interview with Real Clear Politics, Toomey touted his plan for Social Security privatization, conveniently leaving out the word “privatization”:

RCP: Your campaign website, under “spending,” complains of “wasteful pork projects, multiple bailouts, the so-called stimulus, and new government programs.” But what about entitlements?

Toomey: You know, I’ve always said that we need to reform our big entitlement programs. These programs are not sustainable in their current form and so we’re going to have to put them on a secure footing. That’s what we have to do.

RCP: OK, how do we do that? Do we raise the retirement age? Do we cut benefits?

Toomey: I’ve got a whole chapter in a book that I wrote that deals with how I think, one of the ways I think we could reform Social Security to make it viable. So I have provided great detail on that whole idea. That would be a very important start.

Of course, in Toomey’s book, the first subhead under the “Transforming Social Security” chapter is “Personal Accounts Lead to Personal Prosperity.” And it’s really no surprise, considering Toomey’s reaction to President George W. Bush’s privatization scheme. “I have been arguing for many years in favor of Social Security personal retirement accounts,” Toomey said at the time. “I’m thrilled that the President is taking up this critical issue.”

Of course, as a Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis found, under a Bush-style privatization plan, an October 2008 retiree would have lost $26,000 in that year’s market turmoil, and if the U.S. stock market had behaved like the Japanese market during that retiree’s life, the private account would have lost $70,000. And it’s likely not a coincidence that Toomey didn’t let the word privatization into his response, as polls show that such a plan is highly unpopular.

Yesterday, Indiana’s Republican Senate candidate Dan Coats unveiled his job creation plan while campaigning at a medical parts manufacturer. Like the jobs plan that have been released by other Republican senate hopefuls like Marco Rubio (FL) and Roy Blunt (MO), Coats’ plan is heavy on the tax cuts and fearmongering about government regulation.

Coats calls for permanently extending all of the Bush tax cuts, including those for the richest two percent of Americans that President Obama would like to see expire, as well as eliminating the estate tax and cutting the corporate income tax. But when asked about how much these massive cuts would add to the deficit, Coats freely admits that he has no idea:

He could not say what the fiscal impact of his proposals would have on the nation’s deficit, saying it would need more analysis. “I believe the effectiveness will far outweigh the costs,” he said. “Our hope is that we can come back with a budget neutral (plan) or savings.”

Coming back with a budget neutral plan may be Coats’ hope, but in order to achieve that he’s going to need draconian spending cuts or huge middle class tax increases, because the tax cuts he’s proposing will blow a serious hole in the budget. Extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy alone will cost $830 billion over ten years, and eliminating the estate tax is another $784 billion. All of this spending and borrowing will serve to benefit the richest two percent of the country.

As for the corporate income tax, Coats doesn’t actually say how big a cut he has in mind, just that he wants “to make the U.S. competitive with other leading industrial nations.” This is a common conservative trick, focusing on the marginal rate while ignoring that the myriad loopholes and deductions that are in the U.S. corporate tax code result in the U.S. bringing in below average corporate tax revenue for an industrialized nation. For the sake of putting a number on this, the House Republican plan to cut the corporate tax rate to 12.5 percent would cost $2.7 trillion over ten years.

Finally, this is supposed to be Coats’ jobs plan, but according to the Congressional Budget Office, extending the Bush tax cuts is the least effective tax step that could be taken to boost the economy, while cutting the corporate tax rate “is not a particularly cost-effective method of stimulating business spending.” “Increasing the after-tax income of businesses typically does not create an incentive for them to spend more on labor or to produce more,” CBO said.

So let’s call this plan out for what it is: a conservative tax cut wish-list that dramatically lowers taxes for rich people, without even pretending to be fiscally responsible.