So Cain has said he would balance the budget in his first year as President. He has also promised not to cut Medicare or Social Security in the first year. He also suggested that he would prefer to keep more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than President Obama would prefer. So let us make the generous assumption that Cain’s 9-9-9 plan will be revenue neutral. Let us also work from the 2013 spending baseline of the Ryan Budget (which already included 94 billion in spending cuts.) So here is what it would look like in billions:
Security Spending 686
War On Terror 93
Non-Security 435
Medicaid 275
Medicare 601
Social Security 799
Other Mandatory 372
Interest on the Debt 319
Total Spending 3.558 trillion dollars
Deficit for 2013 under the Ryan budget 698 billion
So Cain has promised not to touch the 1.4 trillion dollars in Social Security and Medicare spending. His foreign policy views make it unlikely that there will be substantial decreases in the 93 billion dollar War On Terror funding number (there might be increases, but hey, let’s be generous.) Cain presumably does not want to default so we have to pay the 319 billion in interest payments. The CBO estimates military pensions and veterans benefits at 120 billion for 2013. Who thinks it is just to cut that? That means 1.932 trillion of the 3.558 trillion dollar budget is off the table in the first year. That leaves 1.626 trillion dollars worth of spending from which Cain would have to cut 698 billion. That would have to come out of security spending (which includes the Pentagon and border security), non-security spending (the Justice Department and Transportation Department among others.) All in one year. This is making all kinds of generous assumptions about Cain’s budget. I’ve double counted the 43 billion dollar Earned Income Tax Credit as both revenue under 9-9-9 and as a spending program that could be cut even though the money that would have gone into the tax credit are being taxed by the government in order to keep the tax program revenue neutral. I’m assuming that the 90 billion dollars budgeted for federal civilian employee pensions are on the table for elimination.
