Kent Conrad on Bowles/Simpson proposal (updated)

[ProSense]

TPM: A Bold Plan (That I Can't Commit To)

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) issued the following statement on the Bowles/Simpson proposal:

We have now received a proposal from the bipartisan co-chairs of the President's Fiscal Commission, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. This is not the conclusion of the commission's work. This is the beginning.
I commend them for putting together a serious proposal. It reveals just how difficult it is to put the nation on a sound fiscal course. Some of it I agree with; some I strongly disagree with. We will have a chance to offer alternatives as we advance the process later today and next week.

Our task ahead will be difficult, but we must continue to work toward reaching a bipartisan agreement.

Calculated Risk:

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I doubt the mortgage interest deduction will be eliminated, but maybe it could be reduced over time. Same with the exemption for health benefits. I'd prefer if they left Social Security out of this proposal completely, and just addressed the General Fund deficit. Then, after reaching agreement on the General Fund deficit reduction, they could return to Social Security in the future.

Oh well, this proposal will probably end up with most other commission reports - gathering dust (well, mostly digital dust these days).

Steve Benen: THE FISCAL COMMISSION APPEARS TO HAVE WASTED ITS TIME....

Following up on an earlier item, the White House's "National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform" has released a plan from its chairmen on how to balance the budget. At its core, that's pretty much all it is -- a report from former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson (R) on their vision for fiscal reform.

But those worried that the fiscal commission might actually present a plan that does real damage can relax. No one could possibly vote for any of this. Megan Carpentier's summary was a good one:

Their recommendations are more or less a list of the third-rail issues of American politics, including cuts in the number of federal workers; increasing the costs of participating in veterans and military health care systems; increasing the age of Social Security eligibility; and major cuts in defense and foreign policy spending. They also encompass a range of tax system reforms that have been floated by many in Washington for years to little effect, including reducing tax rates by eliminating many beloved credits and deductions.

The top-line changes are likely to get the most attention, including Medicare cuts and undermining Social Security.

But some of the other provisions in the chairmen's plan are just head-shaking recommendations, pointing to things that simply won't happen. Some of my favorites -- and by "favorites," I mean ideas that I found astounding, not ideas I actually approve of -- include the elimination of hundreds of thousands of federal workers, the elimination of subsidized student loans, new costs imposed on veterans for their health care, cutting schools on military bases, and new entrance fees at the Smithsonian.

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I've seen some suggestions that the report, such as it is, should be considered "controversial." But that's not quite right. It's better to call this what it is: hopelessly irrelevant.

Indeed, I suspect in a couple of months, this commission will have been almost entirely forgotten, mentioned only as a point of ridicule for what not to do.

(Updated to add)

Ezra Klein: There is no report from the fiscal commission

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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.

So the president stepped in and created a fiscal commission of his own. Like the Conrad-Gregg commission, it had 18 members, though fewer of them were members of Congress. Like the Conrad-Gregg commission, it would need 14 of its 18 participants to agree to report out its recommendations. But unlike the Conrad-Gregg commission, it had no actual power in Congress. If 14 members agreed on the recommendations, all that meant was that ... 14 members agreed on the recommendations. They could still be filibustered, amended -- whatever. The political logic of this seemed rather peculiar: If the fiscal commission itself could not pass Congress, how would the recommendations from an executive-branch fiscal commission pass Congress? The recommendations, after all, are where the hard stuff is.

Increasingly, the concern looks to be moot: The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform will not get agreement from 14 of its members. It might not even get a majority. Today's release, unexpectedly, is a draft proposal from the co-chairs, and that might be as close as the commission comes to a comprehensive product. "This is not a proposal I could support," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, one of the members. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, another participant, was less definitive, but nowhere near supportive. "Some of it I like," he said. "Some of it disturbs me. And some of it I've got to study." The full commission is expected to debate the proposal over the next week.

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Substantively, my impression of the report mirrors Hensarling's: Some of it I like, some of it I don't like, and some of it I need to think more about. But the report doesn't fulfill its basic purpose, which was demonstrating enough consensus among congressional representatives of both parties to convince the public and the political system that Congress is ready to make these choices. The reality is, we don't have a congressional fiscal commission, we don't have a report from the White House's fiscal commission, and we don't have a consensus on fiscal issues between the two parties. The co-chairmen have some interesting policy ideas for how to balance the budget, but as of yet, they've not made any discernible progress on the political deadlock preventing us from balancing the budget. And it's the deadlock, not the policy questions, that they were asked to solve.