Is deficit debate a new political dawn?
Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles think it may be a new day in American politics, one where politicans who hike taxes and alter Social Security stay in office.
Simpson, a former Republican senator, tells MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he sees evidence of change whenever he strolls through an airport: “I can tell you, we used to get lots of signals. I get more thumbs up now than other digits.”
The pair, co-chairs of President Barack Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, have proposed cutting the U.S. budget deficit by reducing defense spending, eliminating tax breaks, hiking the gasoline tax and altering Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Those kinds of measures have been a presciption for political suicide up to now, although the recommendations call for lower tax rates overall.
But with voters agonizing over joblessness, the deficit and growing economic powers like China, Simpson and Bowles believe the public wants to hear straight talk about the country’s problems and the steps needed to set things straight.
“Congress people used to believe if they came up here they’d get punished for making tough decisions. I think it’s just the opposite today,” Bowles says. “They will be severely penalized if they take a walk and don’t make these tough decisions and don’t get real.”
Simpson warns specifically against a current argument that says you can eliminate the deficit by banning earmarks, attacking waste, fraud and abuse, and scaling back foreign assistance.
Washington Extra – A snowball’s chance?
American voters made their feelings very clear last week. U.S. government borrowing is too high and needs to be reduced. How sad, then, that the presidential commission tasked with coming up with a credible plan to cut the deficit is already being dismissed as a non-event.
“This is the most predictable economic crisis we have ever faced,” Erskine Bowles rightly said today as he unveiled his joint proposals with co-chair Alan Simpson.
What is lacking, though, is not a realization of this fact, but the political will and bipartisanship to find a solution. Already, some members of their own commission have expressed skepticism about the plan or dismissed it entirely, while the wider audience in Congress is hardly rushing to embrace the ideas.
The commission was supposed to show the way to bipartisanship and magically supply the missing political will. It is already clear that has not happened.
Bowles and Simpson challenged critics of their plan to come up with better ways to cut the deficit. Somehow, that too seems like a vain hope.
And yet, perhaps, as the White House said, this is “just a step in the process,” or, as Senator Judd Gregg put it, “just a starting point.” Perhaps American politicians will surprise me.
Here are our top stories from Washington today…
Simpson: Fix the deficit or your grandkids will pick grit with the chickens
Newly minted Republican deficit commissioner Alan Simpson has a message for Americans: if you don’t want your grandkids picking grit with the chickens, better ignore soundbite politics and get lawmakers to find real solutions to the deficit.
President Barack Obama Thursday named Simpson, a former Wyoming senator, and Erskine Bowles, the head of the University of North Carolina, to lead a bipartisan panel searching for ways to cut the deficit.
Obama called Simpson “a flinty Wyoming truth-teller.”
The former lawmaker quickly embarked on some truth-telling.
Appearing with Bowles on “PBS NewsHour,” Simpson was asked about Republicans who believed that tax cuts were needed now, even if they raised the deficit in the short term.
“I’m not smoking that same pipe,” he replied.
Both he and Bowles said everything would be on the table — from tax increases to program cuts — as they talked to members of both parties about how to bring down Washington’s record budget deficits.
I’m from California, and I’m glad Alan Simpson is gone from office. What an absolute derelict. I hope he still gets things, cause I sure wish he would read this.
From a man in Montana who – like the rest of us – has had enough! He points out in a very pointed manner a good example of why we need term limits for members of our congress.
Senator Alan Simpson calls seniors in America, “The Greediest Generation”…..And gets this letter from one of his constituents…..
Hey Alan,
Let’s get a few things straight…
1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole for FIFTY YEARS…
2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63)…
3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero ambition losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would have made Bernie Madoff proud…
4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and your ilk pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age 67. NOW, you and your shill commission is proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN…
5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now you morons propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because you idiots mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal money from Medicare to pay the bills…
6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you incompetent bastards spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay of YOUR debt…
To add insult to injury, you label us “greedy” for calling “bullshit” on your incompetence. Well, ‘Captain Bullshit,’ I have a few questions for YOU…
1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?
2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?
3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?
4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or, as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?
It is you, Captain Bullshit, and your political co-conspirators who are “greedy”. It is you and they who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers. And for what? Votes. That’s right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it.
And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a bitch!
