Olly Olly Oxen Freeze

So did anyone else go "hey! McCain just had his I pick Sarah Palin moment of the debate" when we got to this portion of the financial section of the evening:

LEHRER: What I'm trying to get at this is this. Excuse me if I may, senator. Trying to get at that you all -- one of you is going to be the president of the United States come January. At the -- in the middle of a huge financial crisis that is yet to be resolved. And what I'm trying to get at is how this is going to affect you not in very specific -- small ways but in major ways and the approach to take as to the presidency.

MCCAIN: How about a spending freeze on everything but defense, veteran affairs and entitlement programs.

LEHRER: Spending freeze?

MCCAIN: I think we ought to seriously consider with the exceptions the caring of veterans national defense and several other vital issues.

Didn't you think, "McCain has never really considered this idea--it just popped into his head and he said it! He wants to be president and make shit up while live on national tv!" For perhaps he doesn't know the composition of the federal budget. Here's one way to look at it, borrowed from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

That means all that's left of the budget pie for McCain's freeze is the 21% for everything else. Side note: It's instructive he left out "interest on the debt" as if the Republican Party he's trying so hard to run from--goddamit he called himself a maverick which is just tacky--didn't build up the gigundo debt we have to pay-off. I guess being a maverick means never having to say it's your party.

What makes up that 21% we could freeze, then?

Very interesting. Even 6% of that is for vets, and we know how much he wants to support them. So I guess that means we freeze education, since, after all, children aren't our future. Or we freeze science and medical research, since we don't need alternative energy and the best way to fund science is through pork-barrel items (I see your Montana bear sperm and raise it some Alaskan seal sperm). Or we freeze transportation and infrastructure work, since American-built things are the best in the world.

The good news is that McCain returned to D.C. to save the day with the bailout plan. For if there's a sharper tool in the economic shed (a more lipsticked pig in the budgetary poke?) than McCain, I don't know who it is. After all, without his leadership of his fellow Republicans, we'd never have an agreement.

Shoot, guess they got all mavericky on him.