I am not a constitutional lawyer, but given my understanding of the Court's language in Justice Stevens's opinion for the Court, I find it very difficult to imagine that McCain and his lawyers (much less his economists) will be capable of "implementing a constitutionally valid line-item veto".
"(P)ausing non-military discretionary government spending programs for one year to stop their explosive growth..." Gee, I hardly know where to begin on this one. First off, a one-year pause would do nothing to stop "explosive growth". It would reduce the level of spending, to be sure, but then that "explosive growth" would go right on happening. This is a mathematical principle of which each of the economist-letter's signatories no doubt is aware.
That said, this post over at CBPP is worth a look (Update: I see that Mark Thoma posted much of the CBPP post, which I should have noted was written by Richard Kogan, back in March). It shows the following:
Domestic discretionary spending fell from 18.4% of all non-interest federal spending in 2001 to (an estimated) 14.7% in 2008. By comparison, defense and security spending (in which the CBPP includes DHS and Veterans' spending) rose from 21.7% to 29.2%.
The real, i.e., inflation-adjusted, growth rate of domestic discretionary spending over this period was 1.3%. That's hardly an "explosive growth" path; by comparison, defense/security increased 9.1%, while SS/Medicare/Medicaid increased 3.8%.
As a share of GDP, domestic discretionary spending actually fell, from 3.1% to 2.8%. That means that this category of spending has been becoming less, not more, burdensome. Defense/security rose from 3.6% to 5.6% of GDP over this period, while SS/M/M rose from 7.7% to 8.4%.
I am frankly baffled as to what my colleagues on the right are talking about when they discuss "explosive growth" in "nonmilitary discretionary government spending". The real money on the spending side is in the military and entitlement categories....
(I)t is difficult for me to believe that people who promote John McCain's economic policies on the basis of the second paragraph of the letter above can simultaneously be aware of the facts and providing honest assessments. Perhaps I am wrong. I hope so.
I think that the disconnection of the letter from fiscal and economic reality is, from the point of view of the signatories, a feature and not a bug--because the McCain platform is so far out in the Gamma Quadrant, nobody will think that this is what the economists actually believe, and they will not have to spend any time defending it.
