Cheat Sheets for Voters

The problem with having the presidential primaries bearing down on us like this is that lots of people probably aren't going to be prepared to vote. There are a lot of candidates with a lot of plans and simply keeping track is a problem (much less understanding what the plans will mean). So I'm occasionally going to flag some resources I think are useful for just sorting out who says what:

• CNN Money is running a series on "The Candidates and Your Money," which so far includes a rundown of their proposals on Social Security and tax breaks.
• The New York Times election site has a series of "candidate grids" where you can check out positions at a glance. Other news organizations do this too, but I really like their grid on health care, which includes a box on "paying for additional costs." And that's absolutely the right question to ask candidates on this problem. Health care costs are already a major factor driving our long-term fiscal problems -- you can't solve the Medicare and Medicaid pieces of the puzzle without doing something about costs. But given that the public shows a lot of wishful thinking on this issue, it's vital to make sure candidates have a way of paying for their promises.
• And let's not forget Factcheck.org, the site devoted to double-checking candidate claims. They've already got plenty of coverage of how well the candidate statements on fiscal issues measure up to the facts.

Incidentially, the choicework guides available on Facing Up are also a pretty useful reality check on what the candidates are saying. Each one goes through the pros and cons of different approaches to these problems, so you can see whether the candidates are really covering all the angles.