It is not the commission's report. And here is the second most important fact to remember: The commission itself does not have any actual power. So what we're looking at is a discussion draft of a proposal to balance the budget authored by two people who don't have a vote in either the House or the Senate.
That was Ezra Klein.
This is also Ezra Klein:
It's worth taking a moment to consider how we got here: The fiscal commission we have is not the fiscal commission we were supposed to have. The fiscal commission we were supposed to have was the brainchild of Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg, the two senior members of the Senate Budget Committee. "The inability of the regular legislative process to meaningfully act on [the deficit] couldn't be clearer," they wrote. Their proposal would have set up a commission dominated by members of Congress and able to fast-track its consensus recommendations through the congressional process -- no delays, no amendments. But that proposal was filibustered in the Senate, mainly by Republicans who worried it would end in tax increases.
I want to highlight this bit (also from Ezra):
Perhaps the oddest feature of the report from the co-chairs of the deficit commission is its cap on the amount of revenues the federal government can raise. It would've been one thing to propose a tax plan bringing revenues up to 21 percent of GDP -- we were at 18.5 percent in 2007 -- but instead, the co-chairs say that revenues shouldn't be allowed to go above 21 percent of GDP.
This actually angers me because this is how California completely screwed itself over the last two years. In our obsession to keep taxes from going up, we hit a genuine crisis we've voted away half the weapons from our arsenal to deal with it.
California called it Prop. 13.
Then there's Andrew Sullivan:
I've quickly scanned the Simpson-Bowles draft proposal and find it extremely encouraging. It really does hit what the Dish regards as key themes for a new fiscal order: 1986-style tax reform (largely removing deductions and lowering rates); serious defense retrenchment; focusing social security on the truly needy and raising the retirement age; hard cost-controls in Medicare; a real populist attack on government waste.
It reads like the manifesto the Tea Party never published. Every detail needs thinking through and debate. Much of it is way over my head in terms of the specifics of government programs and the ability to cut them. But the core proposal is honest, real, and vital. I recommend you download and read both documents.
If I were the president, I would embrace this and urge passage of these proposals as the key domestic objective of his next two years in office. If I were the GOP, intent not on politics but on restraining spending and the debt, I would make this a joint endeavor. If I were the Tea Party, I would leap at this as a way past the old two parties toward fiscal sanity.
What did I just say about Pundits being obsessed with the perfection of their own ideas??
I'm sorry, but Andrew's obsession with cutting our social safety net is one of the areas where I think he's got his head up his ass. He's still in love with Thatcher's England for pity's sake.
I respect Andrew on many issues, but he can really kiss my ass with his idea that this could be Obama's core legacy.
Yeah, its your core issue and have zero chance of being affected by the massive cuts you want.
I'm continually amazed by American's capacity to endure the suffering of someone else.
And finally, Paul Krugman:
OK, let’s say goodbye to the deficit commission. If you’re sincerely worried about the US fiscal future — and there’s good reason to be — you don’t propose a plan that involves large cuts in income taxes. Even if those cuts are offset by supposed elimination of tax breaks elsewhere, balancing the budget is hard enough without giving out a lot of goodies — goodies that fairly obviously, even without having the details, would go largely to the very affluent.
I'm not sure what I think yet, but I can go along with this (back to Ezra again):
Some of it I like, some of it I don't like, and some of it I need to think more about.
In the end, isn't that the reaction a Commission on anything is supposed to enact?
