Parents often find it useful to tell their children about non-existent creatures to instill habits of good behavior. It seems that many political leaders are going the same route. How else can one explain the repeated references to the Bowles-Simpson commission report and its advice to the country on how to reduce the deficit?
The point here is a simple one: there was no Bowles-Simpson commission report. There was no document that commanded the necessary majority of commission members to be adopted as an official report. This should be an easy one that even Washington elites can understand.
The Bowles-Simpson commission, formally known as the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, was a presidential commission created in February of 2010. The two co-chairs were Morgan Stanley Director Erskine Bowles and former Senator Alan Simpson.
Under the rules established by President Obama, the commission was supposed to issue a report by December 1, 2010. To be adopted, a report had to have the support of 14 of the 18 commission members. There was no report that had the 14 votes needed to be approved.
The document that is referred to as the commission report is in fact a report of the co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. In an informal poll of commission members on Dec. 3 (two days after the official deadline) the report received the support of 11 of the 18 members, not the 14 needed to be approved.
Ever since this vote, supporters of the co-chairs' proposal have referred to the report as being the commission report, as though it actually had been approved. For example, last week the New York Times ran a major political piece on the fate of the Bowles-Simpson commission report. Only near the end did the piece mention in passing that the report actually did not have the votes needed to be approved by the commission. There is probably not a day that goes by without some similar misrepresentation of the co-chairs' report by a news outlet or politician.
The notion that it takes more than a majority in some bodies to win approval should not be hard for our political leadership to understand. It takes 60 votes to get a measure through a Senate filibuster. There are all sorts of measures that were blocked in the Senate with votes of 56 to 44 or 58 to 42 in favor. Similarly, most jury verdicts must be unanimous. Juries do not convict people with votes of 10 to 2 or even 11 to 1. It's got to be 12 to 0.
The same people who refer to the Bowles-Simpson commission report have no problem recognizing that a bill does not pass the Senate unless it gets by a filibuster or that a jury divided 10 to 2 or 11 to 1 has not reached a verdict. Yet they insist on attributing the report of the co-chairs to the commission as a whole.
Presumably this reflects the fact that they can't contain their enthusiasm for the report. After all, the report contains many of the themes that the Washington punditry has been pushing for decades. It calls for substantial cuts to both Social Security and Medicare. This position is hugely unpopular with people across the political spectrum as both liberals and conservatives recognize the importance of these programs to their own economic security and to the vast majority of people in the country.
However the Washington elite is comprised of people who do not need these benefits. For them, money that is paid out in Social Security and Medicare benefits is money that could have been in the pockets of the wealthy.
The co-chairs report has other ways to put money into the pockets of the wealthy even more directly. It calls for cutting the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 26 percent. While this rate reduction is supposed to be offset by the elimination of loopholes, leaving it revenue neutral, few would bet that this sort of "reform" would actually turn out that way.
Similarly, Bowles and Simpson want to reduce individual tax rates on the wealthy, again to be offset by reductions in loopholes. Not many people would bet that the 1 percent would suffer in that deal, either.
In short, the report of the co-chairs is an outline for redistributing even more income upward. For this reason it is not likely to get much support from the public if considered on its merits. Presumably this is why the elites keep claiming the existence of a Bowles-Simpson commission report. They are hoping that they can force the public to give this document way more respect than it deserves.
Follow Dean Baker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DeanBaker13
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and still they are not satisfied.
what does it take?
bankruptcy?
how much do they need?
it seems the more they have, the more they feel 'poor'
sounds like an addiction to $$$ to me...
prob not good for anyone
Thanks for the clarity.
Jan Schakowsky was on that commission, and she came up with a proposal that in my opinion would have accomplished what the commission was ostensibly trying to accomplish, but it didn't get very much publicity.
As always, great stuff.
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FROM WIKI
he commission has been criticized as being "stacked with people who want to target entitlement spending rather than any balanced proposal.
Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington criticizes the deficit report for omitting a tax on the financial industry, as was recommended by the International Monetary Fund. He also denounces co-chairs Alan K. Simpson and Erskine Bowles for claiming to have looked everywhere on ways to increase revenue, but not including the financial industry.
Also, a possible conflict of interest exists regarding Erskine Bowles for serving on the board of Morgan Stanley while being on the commission
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BIGGEST PROBLEM= regarding Entitlements as Welfare Programs, that require cuts, instead of being made self-sustaining.
1) While they all have surpluses, the actual money was spent a long time ago, and now requires additional debt for repayment
2) To make entitlements self-sustaining the contribution rates need to be increased and eligibility requirements adjusted to reflect changing costs and population demographics.
Congress won't vote to make these kinds of changes, since it hurts their reelection.
THESE CHOICES SHOULD BE PUT TO THE PUBLIC
There ya go.
So yes, the public is very much in favor of soaking the rich. What they don't know is that the rich are already carrying a HUGELY disproportionate share of the tax burden in this country, likely greater than at any time in history.
http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html
Well, your take on this is undoubtedly popular, practical and compassionate. But there's no way you can justify it as being FAIR.
Wages are set NOT by the evil 1% but by supply and demand in the LABOR MARKET (yeah, I know...that's a foreign concept to you but pick up a book on economics).
And my point was regarding INCOME taxes because the other taxes that you rattled off don't make for an apples-to-apples discussion. Payroll taxes fund each individual's SS and Medicare so they're essentially premiums on an individual, government-managed insurance policy. Sales taxes disproportionately hit the rich because they spend more. Gas taxes fund highway maintenance and are proportionate to usage, except that you Prius owners get a free ride due to your high MPG. Property taxes, like sales taxes, hit the rich living in their mansions.
There's clearly a problematic increase in the wealth disparity in this country but the villain ain't the rich. Rather it's the increasingly unskilled labor pool being created by public schools graduating legions of functional illiterates, high school drop-out rates (50% a LA Unified) and the millions of illegal aliens. This dumbed-down workforce has caused wages for no/low-skill jobs to plummet and helped justify sending jobs offshore. Those middle-class lifestyles won't be rebuilt unless folks do it the old-fashioned way...by EARNING them.
Wanna fix the problem? Start by better understanding the CAUSE!
The point was never that this thing would actually be adopted - it was that some people who aren't IN congress and therefore don't have to deal with the consequences of the public reaction or the lobbying efforts of wall street etc. could perhaps come up with some ideas as to how we could potentially bring our deficits down.
That was enough to show that it involved the loss of several million jobs within the first year. They also tried to claim that Social Security and Medicare cut would have an effect on the budget which is a worn out right wing fallacy. The paper outlined a program of deep and severe austerity without any feasible way to balance income and spending. Instead of benefitting the people, the plan targeted decreasing the entire deficit, not just the annual debt.
So yes, there is no Simpson-Bowles commission report. The default position, the poison pill, seemed to be the goal all along. This ultimately worked well as a counter to Republican obstructionism and extortion, but not until the credit rating of the US was reduced for the first time in our history.
Then there was a small reduction in military sepnding for the first time in our history. IMO, that was the best possible result of this fiasco of a "study".
Those who have worked for large tech firms recognize it as a "white paper", pure imagination.
Good Lord, the Ragin' Cajun was a prophet!