Things you think you country needs to improve

[Pat Mustard]

So what's the commission's plan for reducing debt?

Meat and taters from Wiki:

The final plan was broken down into six major components (savings are 2012-2020):

1. $1,661 billion of discretionary spending cuts by putting in place discretionary spending caps into law lower than what is projected to be spent.
   
2. $995 billion in additional revenue with $785 billion in new revenues from tax reform by lowering income and corporate tax rates and broadening the base by eliminating tax expenditures. An additional $210 billion in revenue is also raised in other revenue by switching to the Chained-CPI and an increase in the federal gasoline tax
   
3. $341 billion in federal health care savings by reforming the Sustainable Growth Rate for Medicare, repeals the CLASS Act (which has already happened), increase Medicare cost sharing, reform health-care tort, change provider payments, increase drug rebates and establishes a long-term budget for total federal health-care spending after 2020 to GDP + 1 percent.
   
4. $215 billion in other mandatory savings by moving to the Chained CPI for all inflation-indexed programs, reform the military and civil service retirement system, reduce farm subsidies, reduce student loans and various other reforms.
   
5. $238 billion in Social Security reform, to be used to ensure the program is sustainably solvent in the infinite horizon by slowing benefit growth for high and medium-income workers, increase the early and normal retirement age to 68 by 2050 and 69 by 2075 by indexing it to longevity, index cost of living adjustments to the Chained-CPI, include newly hired state and local workers after 2020, increase the payroll tax cap to cover 90 percent of wages by 2050 and creates a new minimum and old-age benefit.
   
6. Budget Process Reforms by creating discretionary spending caps and caps total federal revenue at 20 percent of GDP.
   

An additional $673 billion is saved due to lower projected spending interest payments as a result from lower deficits.


The interesting thing about Simpson Bowles was the plan had equal support among Dems and Pubs.  While this is a fatal flaw obviously, it is still something to think about.

1) Cut discretionary spending, oh great let's watch while the US government's ability to influence economic performance or react to unexpected events is thrown out the window.
2) Oh, great let's increase our tax take by reducing the amount of money we can collect in taxes. Yeah I can see that working, just like the pound note I buried in the back garden when I was a kid grew into a magical money tree.
3) So let's reduce the ability of poor people to stay healthy, forcing them to take more days off work, work in less healthy states, be less productive when they're working and die younger. Again, magical money tree.
4) So make programme money increases dependant on a fictional figure which deliberately undercuts the actual rate of inflation. They did that with the NHS in the UK six years ago, and exponentially grew the amount of debt the NHS is in.
5) See three. There is another point here though, the quickest way to stimulate a faltering economy is by increasing the dole. You see, poor people spend all their money (mainly because they don't have much) and they tend to spend it locally, meaning that if you give the poorest third of your country €50 a week extra, that fifty quid will find its way into local shops and other businesses, who'll be able to buy more goods, hire more staff &c, which will stay in the local economy by and large growing it. It is basic economic truth, and one of the reasons why adhering to monetarist economic policy is fucking retarded.
6) So totally remove the government's inability to respond to any sort of crisis. Or to stimulate economic growth, or invest in research and development to improve the chances of the US economy staying relevant in the future.

Basically what you're saying is that the group wants to implement "balanced budget" policies in order to reduce debt. Leaving aside that because the US debt is denominated in USDollars it is essentially money it owes itself, and even if it weren't as the dollar is the world's reserve currency anyone calling it in would destroy the world economy, the UK has been using this "idea" (frankly "balanced" budget policies are so stupid only a lobotomised goldfish could have come up with them, either that or somebody who wants to scam governments) since 2008 and as a result the UK's debt has gone from c.50% to over 80% (and that's just the stuff they're telling us about) and the economy has flatlined.

The policies espoused are the equivalent of sticking a .44magnum to your head and pulling the trigger to stop a nose bleed. Yes the nose'll stop bleeding, but you'll never notice.