If you really get into the guts of the simpson bowles deficit plan, what youll find are a lot of caps. Fairly understanding the simpsonbowles social security. Several proposals, primarily those designed to be revenue raisers such as the obama proposal, the simpson bowles plan, and the bipartisan policy. Darrell west and ashley gabriele examine leadership lessons from the national commission on fiscal responsibility and reform.
Simpson bowles strikes a reasonable compromise between containing costs and raising revenues to close the shortfall. Even more distressing, in my opinion, is the belief that the simpson bowles plan is a balanced approach to deficit reduction that we should be using as a model. Once again, bowles and simpson have produced a plan that tells working people to drop dead. One could think of bowles simpson as a farthing plan, since it effectively reduces spending by only onefourth as much as the penny plan. Simpsonbowless 20 plan to reduce the budget deficit is. In december 2010, bowles and simpson put forward a budget blueprint that proposed to cut tax rates for corporations and the richest americans and eliminate taxes on overseas corporate profits, and then pay for these lower tax rates by cutting social security.
It will fix the deficit and grow the economy and it does it without raising taxes on anyone, unless you want to raise taxes on some people, and. We believe that far from penalizing their leaders for making the tough choices, americans will punish politicians for backing down and well they should. The bowles plan that speaker john boehner endorsed is not the same as the simpson bowles plan. Bowles and simpson were joined on the panel by six house lawmakers and six senators evenly divided among the parties, as well as two business executives, a labor union president and former white. All this would lead you to think that simpson and bowles, nonpartisan truthtellers that theyre purported to be, would make step three enactment of. Know as the chained cpi, this will cut the cola by 3% for workers retired for ten years and 6% for workers retired for twenty years. I am writing in response to your request for estimates of the financial effects on social security of the national commissions plan that is released today. Simpson and bowles assert that by realigning incentives to encourage behavior change, lawmakers can help to bend the health care cost curve and put federal health spending on a more sustainable path. Most of the early savings come from a cap on discretionary spending that rolls discretionary spending back to fy2010 levels for fy2012, requires a 1% cut in discretionary budget authority every year from fy20 though 2015 and then indexes discretionary. The simpsonbowles obama debt commission today released version 2. Bill clintons out tuesday with back to work, a book full of ideas about reviving the economy. Bowles simpson deficit plan its not the balanced approach.
The plenny plan would be enforced by sequesters automatic, acrosstheboard spending cuts, but these sequesters could be set aside whenever congress enacts specific savings to keep under the caps. We have worked closely with bruce reed, marc goldwein, meaghan mann, ed lorenzen, and other members of your team to gain. Bowles and simpson with specific requests for alterations. There are bits and pieces of the plan that are good ideas, but in its totality it. How simpson and bowles plan to bend the health care cost. We believe that far from penalizing their leaders for making the tough choices, americans will punish politicians for. Thats appropriate, as bowles and simpson fully intended. With regard to the simpson bowles deficit plan, my reaction is negative. If bowles and simpson could just get the left to recognize that the plan is in fact a significant tax increase and convince the right that it cuts.
Report of the national commission on fiscal responsibility and reform 7 recognizing that now is the time to act. Posted by ryan ellis on friday, october 5th, 2012, 1. By 2023, its estimated to bring debt down to 69% of gdp, from an estimated high of 78% in 2014. But after 2016, current law deficits are slated to rise whereas under the simpson bowles plan they would fall. Behold new simpsonbowles fiscal plannow with more cuts. They also look at why president nixons leadership is an example in. Simpsonbowles budget plan national commission on fiscal. New simpsonbowles plan faces same old political challenges the former heads of obamas deficitcutting commission want to cut. Alan simpson and erskine bowles, the washington budget sages behind the ubiquitous simpson bowles plan, have released a new version of their old plan to cut the federal deficit by trillions of. Simpsonbowles unveil new plan to reduce deficit youtube. Alan simpson and erskine bowles, cochairs of president barack obamas bipartisan deficit reduction commission, talk about the recommendations of the commission which sought to reduce the deficit and balance the federal budget by 2015. This brings us to the second problem with the simpson bowles plan. Simpsonbowles is the shorthand name for the national commission on fiscal responsibility and reform, named after cochairs alan simpson and erskine bowles, a former republican senator and clinton.
In 2010, bowles and simpson s formal fiscal commission plan was able to garner support from 11 democrats and republicans on the commission, shy of the amount needed to guarantee house and senate. Section 6ac1 is amended by striking subsection d and inserting subsections d and f. The national commission on fiscal responsibility and reform often called simpson bowles or bowles simpson from the names of cochairs alan simpson and erskine bowles. Bipartisan cooperation to enact plan to strengthen social security and put it on a fiscally sustainable path based on the principles and framework outlined in simpson bowles report fully repeals sequester and replaces with comprehensive fiscal plan strong enforcement mechanisms to enforce spending cuts and ensure budget remains on a path. National commission on fiscal responsibility and reform. Cutting social security benefits for current retirees. News about simpson bowles budget plan national commission on fiscal responsibility and reform, including commentary and archival articles published in the new york times.
Simpson and erskine bowles as part of their bipartisan deficit reduction plan. Here are the major elements of the simpson bowles plan that i believe the democratic caucus should strongly oppose. Those close to the process say that the original bowles simpson plan never went to a formal vote. Its identical to the tax hike released in novembers chairmans mark. An important fact to keep in mind in the coming days. First, bowles simpson was basically an eightyear plan, with savings estimated for fiscal years 20 through 2020. The bowles simpson plan aims to keep public debt on a downward path. To compare it with other plans, which routinely come with tenyear savings estimates and now will cover the ten years from 202022, one needs to extend the bowles simpson savings through 2022. The bowlessimpson plan just in case it has legs, here is the draft release by the two cochairmen erskine bowles and alan simpson. In order to seem nonpartisan and unbiased, alan simpson and erskine bowles took great pains to make sure they cut from almost every part of the budget. In essence, what keller is proposing is that obama become the advocate of a plan that would seriously undermine medicare, social security and medicaid and then hold the budget process hostage until. There is a popular myth that future economic growth will solve our fiscal problem. Because all of the commission members let their preferences be known, it.
The five components are proposed reductions in discretionary spending, fundamental tax reform, targeted savings in health care entitlements. Simpsonbowles plan could play vital role in moving. April 19 bloomberg democrat erskine bowles and republican alan simpson, cochairmen of president barack obamas 2010 deficitreduction commission, talk about their new proposal to cut the. The new budget plan released recently by alan simpson and erskine bowles once again demonstrates that it is possible to bring the deficit under control using a mix of spending cuts and revenue increases without harming the nearterm economy. Ezra klein the simpsonbowles plan for capping stuff. The budget plan being pushed by these gentlemans plan does nothing of the sort. Bowles and simpson obliged them, and the result was the original bowles simpson plan. From what really caused the recession to why he likes simpson bowles and how to. Not many people know this but the simpson bowles plan is magic. The simpsonbowles deficit reduction plan is a 2010 bipartisan report on the best way to fix the u. It is not a plan for partisan purists, and that is why it could play a vital role in the coming months as democrats and republicans. Simpson bowles is an example of working together, but anytime you do that people are free to take. Cochairs simpson and bowles of president obamas fiscal responsibility commission surprised everyone when they publicly released their own plan for repairing the federal governments dire fiscal outlook. According to the simpson bowles cochair report, the revenue target of their proposal is to cap revenue at or below 21 percent of gdp.