Yesterday a rough draft of a proposal was released by Obama's bipartisan debt-reduction commission co-chairmen, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson.The 50 page PDF report can be found here.
This was released with the stated intention of being a "starting point", (Bowles' words)not the finished product but it does allow the public a chance to look at the direction in which the bipartisan debt reduction commission is heading.
This initial proposal focuses on a five part plan:
1. Enact tough discretionary spending caps and provide $200 billion in illustrative domestic and defense savings in 2015.
2. Pass tax reform that dramatically reduces rates, simplifies the code, broadens the base, and reduces the deficit.
3. Address the “Doc Fix” not through deficit spending but through savings from payment reforms, cost-sharing, and malpractice reform, and long-term measures to control health care cost growth.
4. Achieve mandatory savings from farm subsidies, military and civil service retirement.
5. Ensure Social Security solvency for the next 75 years while reducing poverty among seniors.
The final commission report and any proposal that follows must be agreed by 14 of the 18 members to win approval and some liberals, even on the commission itself, are already criticizing the spending reductions suggested.
For example (Via The Hill):
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a commission member, balked at the heavy emphasis on spending cuts in the plan.
Co-Chairman Erskine Bowles, a Democrat, said that about 75 percent of the proposed deficit reduction came from spending cuts and 25 percent from “the revenue side.”
No financially responsible plan will work if spending isn't massively reduced. As a country we continue to borrow and spend and that is not a sustainable system and would lead to the continued rising of our federal debt. It will break us.
You cannot spend what you do not have. Just ask folks that live paycheck to paycheck, budgeting so their bills can be paid to keep a roof over their head and food on their table. They will tell you that they must sacrifice their own discretionary spending in their household in order to pay the bills.
Our country must do the same.
Do I, as a conservative, like having to cut discretionary defense spending? Hell no.
But we as a country have spent our way to this point, so what must be done, must be done.
Liberals are going to have to grow up and stop believing that the USA can continue to spend and tax our way out of the mess we have made of our economy.
As the debt reduction commission continues to adjust their proposals to get the 14 out 18 people on it to agree to one plan that will reduce our debt in future years, Americans are going to have to look at the proposal with one question in mind.
Will it reduce our debt?
In the end, the commission has only to answer that question, not hold the hands of those that are unhappy with how that debt gets reduced.
Take a look at the hissy fits being thrown already by liberals, even knowing this is just a rough draft and not the finished product. Simply because they know the commission will recommend cutting spending when all is said and done.
Suck it up.
[Update] At least one Senate Democrat, Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), seems to understand the importance and he is willing to sacrifice his political career if necessary.
Conrad challenged those liberal critics of the plan to make counterproposals if they're so dissatisfied with the co-chairmen's report, which doesn't represent the final recommendations of the commission.
"I would agree with what the president said. Instead of shooting this down, propose an alternative — but one that does as good of a job as this one does at getting us back on a sound fiscal choice," he said.
PS
This post does not imply that the proposal as written is acceptable to conservatives and only unacceptable to liberals. There areas of the proposal that will see in-depth negotiations before a final product is introduced and then, only then, can the public have an intelligent conversation about the way forward.
There are areas which are completely out of line, on both sides of the coin, and other areas where we can build. But to automatically criticize a whole segment as in "spending cuts are bad" or "taxes are bad" without seeing a final draft of what will be proposed, is unreasonable and at least the majority of conservative pundits are being cautious rather than spewing hatred toward the commission altogether as most liberals are doing.
NRO reminds readers about who the commission is made up of: It was created by the president and stacked with Democratic appointees. Two-thirds of the 18 members were picked by the president or Democratic congressional leaders. Only six were appointed by Rep. John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell.
So for any liberal to claim the proposal is a "conservative" issue, is no more than a bald face lie because they don't like what is in the preliminary release.
End of update.