10 Reasons the Deficit Commission Proposal Is Still Unconscionable and Unacceptable

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/rj-eskow/32864/10-reasons-the-deficit-commission-proposal-is-still-unconscionable-and-unacceptable


The co-chairs of the presidential Deficit Commission released the final draft of their report today, and it's now scheduled for a Friday vote by members of the Commission. We're being told that it's a fairer and more reasonable document than its predecessor. It's nothing of the kind.

In many ways this document is worse than the draft that preceded it, and those much-lauded "compromises" evaporate in the cold light of reality. This new draft is lipstick on a piggy-bank robber, a package of cosmetic changes meant to disguise its true purpose: To raid the future financial security of most Americans in order to benefit a few.


:snip:

1. It's still a massive tax giveaway for the rich.
2. It still increases the tax burden for everyone else.
3. It will result in millions of lost jobs.
4. The elderly will face harsh benefit cuts.
5. Most of us will still work longer for less.
6. It punishes the long-term jobless.
7. Women will pay an unfair price.
8. That "living longer" benefit bump is a pittance.
9. The plan still discriminates -- by income and by race.
10. It doesn't solve the health-care problem. It just shifts the cost.


Much more in-depth discussion at the link ---

[laughingliberal]

1. Puts us further down the disastrous road of supply side economics that's been destroying us all.

K&R

[somone]

2. If Congress doesn't throw that piece of garbage in the trash

there will be hell to pay at the polls (I hope).

[gratuitous]

3. They've already blown their final report deadline

They won't follow even their own rules.

And nobody will care.

I predicted it at the beginning of the week, and I've heard it already from Bowles and Simpson, that if we don't adopt every last proposal from their commission, the United States is doomed. Well, okay, Congress doesn't have to adopt every last proposal, but clearly the problem with our nation's economy is that the retirement age is too low and a bunch of greedy geezers are looting the Treasury with their outsize demands for social security benefits. Those changes will surely have to be adopted or the United States as we know it will be over. Over, I tell you!

[struggle4progress]

4. The politics of the Commission seem to me more interesting than its report -- and yet

the politics receive surprisingly little attention here. The US is badly divided, and Obama appointed a commission to make bipartisan recommendations. What instead happened, apparently, was a behind-the-scenes knock-down fight, during which a report was somehow drafted that many members of the commission will not support, with the result that the chairs of the commission went public to announce their own views as the findings and recommendations of the committee

Various and divergent insider views of what has happened here would be interesting and perhaps informative -- but, of course, we're not getting any of that

[dgibby]

6. Where's Wikileaks when you need them? n/t

[hfojvt]

5. there's a lot of verbiage there

It might be simplified with more facts about what the proposal actually says. I had to read to point 2 before I saw that the proposal "drops the top tax rate from 39.6% to 28%".

Of course, I might note that the top tax rate is not currently 39.6% unless the Bush tax cuts expire. Funny thing about those Bush tax cuts. I am sure Republicans are planning to use them as a cover. That is, the Bush tax cuts ALREADY provide a $70 billion tax cut for the wealthy, but that will be swept under the rug to make the tax cut for the wealthy in this proposal look smaller than it really is.

THIS is their idea of "deficit reduction"? To steal my social security taxes by making me work longer before I can collect benefits and then to give that stolen money to the rich in the form of tax breaks?

Is the President going to disavow this commission or not?