During an interview with a local television affiliate in New Hampshire yesterday, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) was asked how John McCain will make up revenues the federal government will lose because of his enormous tax cut plan.
Palin was shocked at the premise of the question. “Really!?” she immediately replied, adding that the “suggestion there is that revenue should be coming into government at this time and that’s not what should happen at a time like this.” But later Palin dismissed any concerns about the federal government’s lack of cash flow:
PALIN: We shouldn’t worry about government having enough money, the government has plenty of money its a matter of how government prioritizes the expenditure of those public dollars.
However, today during a rally in Maine, Palin suddenly became worried about the government’s books:
PALIN: John has the backbone, he’s got the backbone and the guts to confront the $10 trillion debt that the government has run up. We will balance the federal budget by the end of our term.
Watch the compilation:
The simple fact is that there is no way McCain will be able to balance the budget by 2013, as he and his campaign have erroneously claimed on a number of occasions.
But Palin’s claim that “we shouldn’t worry about the government having enough money” echoes an assertion that Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly made in 2002, arguing that “deficits don’t matter.” Since then, President Bush has presided over the largest increase in the debt of any president in history and is looking at a record deficit of $482 billion for FY2009.