It may be good politics, but the plan John McCain released last week doesn't work from a budget perspective unless:

• He's also proposing a steady series of record-high nominal deficits

• He's somehow figured out how to make spending cuts acceptable when up to now Congress, whether it has been under Republican or Democratic control, has refused to reduce to the levels he's suggesting

• He's figured out a way to prevent natural disasters from occurring

• He can guarantee that no military or foreign policy issues will occur while he's president

The most glaring problem with the McCain plan is also the simplest to see: he is proposing more than $3 trillion in tax reductions (some estimates put it at $5 trillion or higher) with nothing close to offsetting spending cuts.

(In their separate posts here at Capital Gains and Games, Pete discusses the McCain tax plan and Andrew deals with the economics, so I'll leave it to them to explain in more detail what is being proposed in those areas.)

Andrew rose to the occasion and came up with a perfectly acceptable definition for the phrase "sustainable solvency" used by the think tanks in their entitlement reform plan.

But...and it's a big but...this is really nothing more than attempt to come up with a process for cutting entitlement spending.

I completely understand the need to make these and all other programs in the federal budget fit within the revenues that will be collected, to make the revenues match the spending, or some combination of the two.

But coming up with a theoretical 75 -year "budget" for these programs and then relying on a trigger mechanism to do the dirty work is really nothing more than an admission that elected officials won't do what's necessary if left on their own.  In other words, this is like a base closure commission and process for entitlemnent programs?