Politics Confidential
The deficit reduction mavericks are back. Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles failed to get Washington to accept their original deficit reduction plan at the end of 2010; but this bipartisan duo is rolling out a revamped plan and more tough talk aimed at both Congress and the President.
"They haven't done any of the tough stuff, any of the important stuff, they haven't reformed the tax code...they haven't done anything to slow the rate of health care to the rate of growth of the economy, they haven't made Social Security sustainably solvent. There's about $2.4 trillion more of hard work we've gotta do," former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles tells Politics Confidential.
In their new plan, Simpson and Bowles call for a variety of measures that would shrink the nation's deficit, ranging from decreasing discretionary spending to reforming government programs to make them more sustainable. Simpson gets particularly passionate when talking about reforming programs utilized by the country's growing aging population, such as Medicare and Social Security, describing our current path as "madness."
"10,000 [Americans] a day are turning 65," says the former senator from Wyoming. "This is madness. And life expectancy is 78.1, and in 5 years will be 80. Who is kidding who? This will eat a hole through America."
Simpson points out that all the suggestions they've offered to reform Medicare and Social Security would be gradual and would not affect anyone over the age of 60.
To hear more about Simpson and Bowles new plan to deal with the country's fiscal problems, and to hear their thoughts about the impending sequestration on March 1, check out this week's Politics Confidential.
Blog List
-
Kaley Cuoco Shows Off Fit Physique In Skin-Revealing Yoga Outfit - By Suzy Byrne Kaley Cuoco leaving yoga class in L.A. on Monday. (X17online.com)Kaley Cuoco gave new meaning to hot yoga on Monday when she emerged from cla...10 years ago
Pageviews
34,272
Popular Posts
-
For iPhone users, Google Maps is back. The revamped app, launched last week , is being downloaded in the tens of millions . As a resu...
-
Tonight Doctor Who fans get to gorge on their annual Christmas fix -- a full-length special episode the series has produced every year for ...
-
Nintendo Wii U I remember it still people flipped out about the Nintendo ( NTDOY ) Wii . Yes, its name was mocked for a while, but there wa...
-
In a news conference today (Dec. 21), National Rifle Association Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre blamed ...
-
Mashable's Anita Li contributed to this report from Toronto. Research in Motion , maker of the once-treasured but now beleaguered BlackB...
-
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Queen Elizabeth will use her traditional Christmas Day message, filmed in 3D for the first time, to pay tri...
-
Yahoo! editors have selected this video as a favorite of 2012. It first ran in Yahoo! Screen in June and eventually received more than 1 mi...
-
Apple ( AAPL ) is no stranger to ditching technologies when it deems them to no longer be useful. The company dropped the floppy disk for a...
-
Apple ( AAPL ) has just released iOS 6.0.2 to fix a number of bugs on the operating system including one bug that reportedly affe...
-
PORTERVILLE, Calif. (AP) The church bell that rings out to announce the deaths of tribal members on the Tule River Indian Reservatio...