More fallout from the McCain tax policy bait and switch...

Wonk Room » Holtz-Eakin On $2.8 Trillion Gap: Just Because McCain 'Said Things In Town Halls...Doesn't Mean It's Official'

McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin responded yesterday to a recent report by the Tax Policy Center, which found a $2.8 trillion gap between McCain's public economic proposals and what his advisers had been telling tax experts in private.

Slate reports:

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's chief economic adviser, says the numbers he provided to the TPC aren't secret--they're the same ones he provides to anyone who asks. He also disputes the way the study takes suggestions McCain has made on the stump out of context. "This is parsing words out of campaign appearances to an unreasonable degree," Holtz-Eakin said. "He has certainly I'm sure said things in town halls" that don't jibe perfectly with his written plan. But that doesn't mean it's official.

Two problems: the numbers Holtz-Eakin gave to the Tax Policy Center in their initial analysis weren't available to "anyone who asks," and pointing out the gaping distinctions between what McCain says on the stump and what his advisers say in private, is far from parsing.

For months, the McCain campaign had not offered specific numbers on his profligate budget proposals. In June, Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition, a prominent advocacy group for balanced budgets, told Bloomberg news: "I haven't received anything, and if some of the other groups have then I'll be really ticked off...If he's got some more complete budget proposal he can send I'd love to get it."

Taxing games | Posted July 25, 2008 06:53 PM by John Irons