Fiscal Commission CoChairs' Proposal, Nov. 10, 2010

[pinto]

Source: National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform

Here's the current info, released today, from the "Debt Commission". The CoChairs' Proposal is listed under Latest News at the website and the links are below (pdf files). ~ pinto

CoChairs' Proposal
November 10, 2010

CoChairs' Proposal -

http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/sites/fiscalcommission.gov/files/documents/CoChair_Draft.pdf

$200 Billion in Illustrative Savings -

http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/sites/fiscalcommission.gov/files/documents/Illustrative_List_11.10.2010.pdf

Read more: http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/sites/fiscalcommission.gov/files/documents/Illustrative_List_11.10.2010.pdf

[stray cat]

1. The cut in discretionary funding to 2010 levels across the board bites!

but some of it certainly seems sound.

[stray cat]

2. Recommend so DUers can read it and know of what they bitch!

[DJ13]

3. reducing annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security

It already falls below the real rate of inflation, just raise the cap you tightwads!

[cstanleytech]

4. I say no cuts until they start with cutting the pay and perks for

congress the senate and military spending to prove they are not hypocrites.

[rfranklin]

5. Pentagon cuts should be three times that $100 billion just for a start...

They will not actually cut $100 billion, they will move some current budgets to black ops and keep their share just as it is.

[MineralMan]

6. It's a draft. In order for it to be taken up in Congress, it has to

have 14 out of 18 votes in the commission. Let's remember that.

[pinto]

7. Good points.

:thumbsup:

[MineralMan]

8. Thanks. I imagine there will be many changes in this draft

before any vote in the commission takes place. As always, I'm waiting until there's an actual thing to get excited about. I have no doubt that not everyone on the commission thinks this draft is a good idea. I'm going to study the draft, then send some messages out to the members about my misgivings. That seems more useful than writing a bunch of stuff here, where nobody who has to vote on it reads at all.

[pinto]

10. There's an amazingly long, detailed list of proposals. I went through them once,

just to look at the scope of the thing. Some seem really good, some really bad and some I've no clue what they entail.

[David__77]

11. Now is exactly the time to get excited and demand the commission be disbanded.

Obama never should have set up an austerity commission - it is simply appalling. Nothing remotely good can come of it.

[pinto]

12. I disagree. Look at the list of proposals. Some are good ideas. And it'll all

have to go through the bureaucratic process once specific proposals get approved by the commission and passed on to Congress.

In more extreme times, this approach was previously made -

Roosevelt entered office without a specific set of plans for dealing with the Great Depression; so he improvised as Congress listened to a very wide variety of voices.<9> The "First New Deal" (1933–34) encompassed the proposals offered by a wide spectrum of groups. (Not included was the Socialist Party, whose influence was all but destroyed.)<10> This first phase of the New Deal was also characterized by fiscal conservatism (see Economy Act, below) and experimentation with several different, sometimes contradictory, cures for economic ills. The consequences were uneven. Some programs, especially the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and the silver program, have been widely seen as failures. Other programs lasted about a decade; some became permanent. The economy shot upward, with FDR's first term marking one of the fastest periods of GDP growth in history. However a downturn in 1937-38 raised questions about just how successful the policies were, with the great majority of economists and historians agreeing they were an overall benefit.

The New Deal policies drew from many different ideas proposed earlier in the 20th century. Some opponents of bigness, led by assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold, went back to the anti-monopoly tradition that stretched back to Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, an influential adviser to many New Dealers, argued that bigness was a negative economic force, producing waste and inefficiency. However, the anti-monopoly group never had a major impact on New Deal policy.<11> Other leaders such as Hugh Johnson of the NRA took ideas from the Woodrow Wilson Administration, advocating techniques used to mobilize the economy for World War I. They brought ideas and experience from the government controls and spending of 1917-18. Other New Deal planners revived experiments suggested in the 1920s, such as the TVA.

Roosevelt listened to an informal "Brain Trust", which advocated more government regulation. Donald Richberg, the second head of the NRA, said "A nationally planned economy is the only salvation of our present situation and the only hope for the future."<12>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal

[Hoyt]

13. I think it's a pretty good first draft on a serious problem.

It is nothing like the alarmist have been fretting over for months. It needs some work, but it's a heck of a lot better than I ever thought we'd get.

[David__77]

17. The commission's orientation is toward neo-liberal economics, solely.

There is nothing in there that isn't so oriented. The very notion that there is a "crisis" serves austerity. Someone has to draw a bright red line and say no to raising the retirement age, no to effective cuts, and yes to raising the income cap. Changes in taxation should be aimed at increasing taxation on unproductive income of top earners.

[Warren Stupidity]

20. "the bureaucratic process" ?

The same process that was applied to health care reform? That process? That is the process that you think will make this FUCKING AWFUL PROPOSAL better? Seriously?

[Hissyspit]

9. Tax the rich. Cut defense.

Easy.

[Celtic Raven]

14. +1

Completely doing away with the income cap would be the best thing.

I've got to go read the draft before I say any more.

[mvd]

15. There are some good ideas, but some real deal-breakers, too

Deal breakers:

- The retirement age should not go one day over 65. This draft has it going to 69??
- Tort reform listed in the draft is not necessary. It's just a Repuke plan that wouldn't solve anything.
- Corporate tax rate should be increased, not reduced
- Three tax rate system isn't high enough on the top third or low enough on the bottom third. Also simplifies the rates too much.
- Defense cuts and domestic cuts should not be equal. Defense spending is way more bloated.
- I'm not a believer in a deficit cap. Sometimes deficit spending is needed in rough times.

Good things:

- Providing more info. and choices to retirees
- Raising the taxable maximum for social security
- New special minimum benefit
- Cutting inefficiencies in spending. Even I can get behind that.
- Public health care option one of the possibilities mentioned
- Invests in infrastructure, edication, R&D

[pinto]

18. Good points.

:hi:

[mvd]

19. Thanks, pinto!

I'm glad you started a thread where we can see the whole draft. :hi:

[TexasObserver]

16. recommend

[Warren Stupidity]

21. K&R Please Read and Understand.

What is proposed here is an all out assault on working families and the remnants of the New Deal.

[Safetykitten]

22. "Default option on copiers to double sided".

We are so screwed.