After I posted a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that, if he is elected president, Barack Obama should hire Doug Holz-Eakin to be his budget director, self-styled progressives have gone nuts. The Obamaites are up-in-arms because Holtz-Eakin happens to be John McCain's chief economic adviser. Could I have struck a nerve?

If Barack Obama gets elected President, the first thing he should do is hire Doug Holtz-Eakin to be his budget director. A highly-respected non-partisan budget wonk, who is leaning Obama’s way in the election, threw out this seemingly crazy idea at lunch the other day. And the more I thought about it, the more sense it made.

Liberal bloggers have taken to ganging up on the Blue Dogs—conservative Democrats who tend to go their own way on fiscal and foreign policy issues. Smelling victory in November, some on the left would like to find a way to take out these lawmakers, who mostly represent southern and midwestern swing districts.

For a brief 48 hours, it looked as if John McCain was courageous enough to say something sensible about tax policy—and as a result was immediately attacked by both the right and the left. Today’s Wall Street Journal reported disapprovingly that McCain would consider payroll taxes as a way to bolster Social Security’s finances.“Mr. Stephanopoulos [on ABC’s This Week] pressed, ‘So that means payroll tax increases are on the table, as well?’ Here came the words that have caused the McCain campaign well deserved grief: ‘There is nothing that's off the table. I have my positions, and I'll articulate them. But nothing's off the table.’”

To paraphrase the oily Captain Renault of Casablanca fame, we in Washington are shocked, shocked to find that deficits are going on here. To listen to the cries of outrage and dismay, one might think the Bush Administration’s latest projection of nearly $400 billion in red ink for the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, and almost $500 billion for next year was unexpected.

TPC sponsored a fascinating debate today between John McCain’s top policy adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin, and Barack Obama’s senior economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee. More than anything, I was struck by how much time each spent criticizing the other guy’s fiscal plan rather than promoting their own.