THE CANDIDATES How They Want to Spend Your Money

BARACK OBAMA: Obamanomics is a lot like Rubinomics, which the Clintonites favored in the ’90s. It would boost taxes on high earners (by letting Bush income-tax cuts expire) to fund targeted tax cuts for the middle class and new spending on health care; redeploy funding from Iraq to the war on domestic woe, and possibly lift the cap on the payroll tax to shore up Social Security.

Obama would let individuals and small companies buy health-care benefits similar to the ones that members of Congress get. (He’d mandate coverage for children.) Families that couldn’t afford rates would be eligible for subsidies, while others would be covered by expanding Medicaid and SCHIP programs.

Health Care* $240 Billion

He’s pitching a refundable $4,000 tax credit on tuition and promising to raise Pell Grants to keep up with inflation. He’s pledged $10 billion a year for a Zero-to-Five early-education plan (aiming for universal access to preschool); 40,000 scholarships for teachers, and grants for dropout-prevention programs.

Education $75 Billion

Obama’s pledged $150 billion over 10 years to transition into the next generation of energy. He’ll double funding for research on clean energy, create a Green Jobs Corps and set up a five-year, $50 billion federal Clean Technologies Venture Capital Fund. He’ll offset costs by auctioning off rights to emit carbon.

Energy $60 Billion

HILLARY CLINTON: Clinton would let the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010, and (like Obama) she’d end the loophole that lets hedge-fund managers pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. She plans to use the proceeds to beat down the deficit and pursue her signature issues: universal-health- care coverage, education reform, new savings programs, greener energy and housing aid.

Clinton wants to extend health care to every American. She’d use tax credits to limit premiums to a fixed percentage of family income and expand rolls of Medicaid and the SCHIP children’s coverage program. Expanding the pool of the insured should bring savings. But costs will likely exceed $100 billion/year.

Health Care $400 Billion

For K-12, Clinton will leave behind No Child Left Behind, recruit thousands of new teachers and principals, aid at-risk youth and expand after-school programs. For college kids, she’d create a $3,500 college tax credit; increase Pell Grants and AmeriCorps scholarships, and invest in community colleges.

Education $88 Billion

Clinton has a 10-year, $150 billion plan for the environment: create a $50 billion “strategic energy fund” (paid for in part by higher taxes for oil companies, which will invest in new sources of energy and technology), double funding for federal basic energy research and add $20 billion of Green Vehicle Bonds.

Energy $58 Billion

JOHN MCCAIN: After initially opposing the Bush tax cuts as a costly giveaway to the wealthy, McCain is now stumping to extend the rate reductions on income, capital gains, dividends and estates, which are largely set to expire in 2010. It’s unclear how he will make up the lost revenue— $3.6 trillion over 10 years —while boosting defense spending and reining in the deficit.

An ardent supporter of the surge, McCain has pledged to maintain U.S. presence in Iraq for 100 years if necessary. Victory has its price. Congressional Budget Office reports it costs some $10 billion per month for combat operations. Price tag for staying in Iraq at current troop levels through 2012: $550 billion.

Defense $550 Billion

McCain sponsored the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, whose reform of visa programs and immigration-control measures bears an $18.5 billion price tag through 2012. Additionally, he’s pledged $5 billion in the next four yours for a high-tech fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Border security $23.5 Billion

He cosponsored the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007, which would authorize $3.7 billion in federal subsidies for new nuclear power plants. He could revive an amendment that he sponsored to the Energy Policy Act of 2005; it would’ve given $1.5 billion to cap greenhouse gases at 2000 levels by 2010.

Energy $5 Billion

*All figures are first-term, four-year expenditures. Sources: Congressional budget office, joint committee on taxation, The Washington Post, McCain for president, department of veterans affairs, democratic national committee, Hillary Clinton for President, public citizen, U.S. public interest research group, Obama for America, republican national committee, New York Times, center on budget and policy priorities