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RWB News: I could be wrong but I thought messing with Social Security and Medicare is what Dems were blaming Republicans for? Let's see how the "bi-partisanships" works with this agenda. The co-chairmen proposed a $3.8 trillion deficit-cutting plan yesterday that would trim Social Security and Medicare, reduce income-tax rates and eliminate tax breaks including the mortgage-interest deduction. The plan would raise the gas tax, slash defense spending and farm subsidies and bring down health-care costs by clamping down on medical malpractice suits. The Social Security retirement age would rise to 68 in about 2050 and 69 in about 2075.
Reported by Bloomberg
A plan offered by the leaders of President Barack Obama's commission to reduce the federal deficit might work. It just won't happen.
The co-chairmen proposed a $3.8 trillion deficit-cutting plan yesterday that would trim Social Security and Medicare, reduce income-tax rates and eliminate tax breaks including the mortgage-interest deduction. It would reduce the annual deficit from $1.3 trillion this year to about $400 billion by 2015 and start reducing the $13.7 trillion national debt.
"Mathematically it apparently works," said Stan Collender, a former Democratic House and Senate budget analyst and managing director of Qorvis Communications in Washington. "Politically, it is going to have a lot of trouble getting support from more than just the two co-chairs."
The plan would raise the gas tax, slash defense spending and farm subsidies and bring down health-care costs by clamping down on medical malpractice suits. The Social Security retirement age would rise to 68 in about 2050 and 69 in about 2075.
Its release created instant opposition from Democrats, some Republicans and groups such as the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Aerospace Industries Association.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the targeting of Social Security and Medicare "simply unacceptable," and Republican Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas expressed opposition to proposals to raise taxes.
Obama Reaction
Obama, in Seoul as part of a 10-day tour of Asia, said he had yet to read the plan and that critics should withhold their judgment until the final report. He urged congressional leaders to match rhetoric with action and join him in making difficult decisions about taxes and spending.
"So before anybody starts shooting down proposals, I think we need to listen, we need to gather up all the facts," Obama said at a press conference with South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-Bak. "If people are, in fact, concerned about spending, debt, deficits and the future of our country, then they're going to need to be armed with the information about the kinds of choices that are going to be involved."
Panel co-chairman Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, joked that he and co-chairman Alan Simpson, a Republican former Wyoming senator, would have to enter a "witness protection program."
'Harpooned Every Whale'
"We have harpooned every whale in the ocean and some of the minnows," said Simpson. The plan, he said, is sure to be unpopular. He and Bowles said should the proposals should be viewed as a starting point for negotiations. The panel meets again next week to consider changes.
"Is America ready for an adult conversation on the deficit?" said Representative Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat. "It's 'put up or shut up' time."
None of the proposals would take effect next year to avoid disrupting the economic recovery. The savings would come between 2012 and 2020, cutting the deficit from the current 9 percent of the nation's gross domestic product to about 2.2 percent in 2015, exceeding Obama's goal of a reductions to 3 percent of GDP.
$8 Trillion
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