John McCain and Barack Obama traded shots over who is the big spender in this race, with McCain unleashing this ad attacking Obama for his plan to spend “recklessly” and add to the deficit. Obama responded by citing McCain’s “reckless spending plans”, including the massive transition costs associated with privatizing social security. It is my firm belief that neither campaign has truly acknowledged the need for fiscal discipline, but at least Obama has talked of the obvious possibility that some spending may need to be put off, or spread over longer periods of time. McCain has said he would balance the budget by the end of his first term, without saying how he would do it. At this point both campaigns are full of it on spending, but it has been eight years of “reckless spending and tax policies” by George Bush and the Republican controlled Congress that drove us from the Clinton surplus to doubling the national debt in eight years. The day of reckoning for that mismanagement is at hand, but many still fail to see the underlying problems of trade and fiscal deficits. Both parties continue to cling to the idea that these deficits can continue forever without eroding our standard of living in the U.S. The fallacy of that position is only begining to become apparent.