If you think the economy is bad now, just wait, according to the Daytona News-Journal. And if you want to make it unimaginably bad, vote for McCain.

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office will release its summer update to the budget and economic outlook. The report will include grim numbers that aren’t being talked about much on the campaign trail, including a budget deficit near or beyond the record $412.7 billion deficit recorded in 2004…

How does McCain intend change that helps 15 million unemployed and underemployed Americans when his economic plan not only adopts Bush’s policies, but digs the hole deeper?

Unemployment gets the headlines. But deficits matter just as much in the long run. When they’re small, the government has more room to borrow and smaller payments to finance the debt. Interest rates can go down…allowing businesses to invest more and consumers to buy more on credit.

..When deficits balloon, everything eventually goes in reverse. Interest rates rise to finance the deficit, and auto loans, mortgages, credit cards, college loans and business investments all become more expensive to finance.

The problem with the job losses of the past eight months is that they happened before the effects of much larger deficits take their toll. That doesn’t speak hopefully of the future when, by the White House’s estimate, the next president will inherit a $500 billion deficit.

…John McCain’s plan is sheer folly: Make the Bush tax cuts permanent, and cut taxes and reduce federal revenue even more by abolishing the Alternative Minimum Tax, reducing the corporate tax and doubling the child tax credit. That’s a recipe for trillion-dollar deficits on top of a national debt approaching $10 trillion.

One thing is clear. President Bush’s economic policies failed. The tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 did not produce the promised economic growth. Growth in Bush’s eight years did not produce the promised jobs. It did not lift wages. After inflation, household income has fallen below 2000 levels despite the few years of economic growth between the 2001 and 2008 recessions. Artificially lowering interest rates boosted the housing market artificially, leading to a very real crash. Changing Washington would be nice. But how does McCain intend change that helps 15 million unemployed and underemployed Americans when his economic plan not only adopts Bush’s policies, but digs the hole deeper?