McCain "New" Plan: Overhaul Social Security; Balance Budget and drown the Government

Breaking tonight on Politico, this is how McCain plans to kick off his big Economic week, the spearhead of his new makeover effort... and as you can quickly see, he's now completely given control to the Rovian monkeys. And how he dances on this pin head without raising taxes, i'd love to see...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) plans to promise on Monday that he will balance the federal budget by the end of his first term by curbing wasteful spending and overhauling entitlement programs, including Social Security, his advisers told Politico.

The vow to take on Social Security puts McCain in a political danger zone that thwarted President Bush on the top domestic priority of his second term.

"In the long-term, the only way to keep the budget balanced is successful reform of the large spending pressures in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid," the McCain campaign says in a policy paper to be released Monday.

"to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." - Grover Norquist

And the Obama team immediate response

Jason Furman, Obama's economic policy director, called McCain's pledge "preposterous." Furman pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office now estimates a 2013 deficit of $443 billion, assuming the Bush tax cuts are extended. And he estimated that McCain would have to cut discretionary spending—including defense—by roughly one-third to bring the budget into the black by then.

When is a Flip-Flop truly historical in size? When it's a double flip-flop

The pledge is a return to an earlier position he'd later backed away from. On April 15, McCain backed off a February pledge to balance the budget in his first term when asked about it by Michael Cooper of  The New York Times, who reported that McCain said "at a news conference ... that ‘economic conditions are reversed’ and that he would have a balanced budget within eight years."

This time at least, they'll be honest about trying to screw over Social Security...  Good Luck with Florida