We have updated our preliminary estimates of the revenue effects of the candidates’ tax plans. Our estimate for the ten-year revenue change compared with current law from Senator Obama’s plan is identical to that in our original study—a $2.7 trillion revenue loss. Our updated projection for Senator McCain’s plan shows a revenue loss of $3.6 trillion instead of $3.7 trillion. With interest costs, Obama would add $3.3 trillion to the national debt, while McCain would increase the debt by $4.3 trillion.

In preparing our analysis of the candidates’ tax plans, we sent descriptions to each campaign for comment/clarification/correction. Senator Obama’s staff asked us not to include his reported support for a Social Security tax on earnings above $200,000 or $250,000, saying that there was no specific proposal. So we left the Social Security proposal out of our core analysis. We also left out Senator McCain’s proposal for an optional alternative tax system on similar grounds. We did discuss these non-proposals in two sidebars in our analysis.