{"id":5128,"date":"2010-11-10T20:25:50","date_gmt":"2010-11-11T01:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=5128"},"modified":"2010-11-10T20:32:05","modified_gmt":"2010-11-11T01:32:05","slug":"has-the-deficit-reduction-panel-lost-their-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2010\/11\/10\/has-the-deficit-reduction-panel-lost-their-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Has The Deficit Reduction Panel Lost Their Mind?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Why does the commission recommendation include changes to Social Security and Medicare, when just undoing George W. Bush would bring a 75% larger reduction in the deficit than the commission is getting with their drastic plan?<\/p>\n<p>The Los Angeles Times has the story <a title=\"LA Times Article\" href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/nationworld\/nation\/wire\/sc-dc-1111-deficit-commission-20101110,0,3941066.story\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Panel: Deep cuts, new revenues needed to balance budget<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The plan calls for $200 billion in domestic and military spending cuts in 2015, a down payment on cuts that would reduce the deficit by nearly $4 trillion through 2020.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In a report <a title=\"Report from Center On Budget and Policy Priorities\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cbpp.org\/cms\/index.cfm?fa=view&amp;id=3036\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Critics Still Wrong on What\u2019s Driving Deficits in Coming Years Economic Downturn, Financial Rescues, and Bush-Era Policies Drive the Numbers<\/strong><\/a> by Kathy Ruffing and James R. Horney of the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities take a different look at deficit reduction<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Just two policies dating from the Bush Administration \u2014 tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan \u2014 accounted for over $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 and will account for almost $7 trillion in deficits in 2009 through 2019, including the associated debt-service costs. 6 (The prescription drug benefit enacted in 2003 accounts for further substantial increases in deficits and debt, which we are unable to quantify due to data limitations.) These impacts easily dwarf the stimulus and financial rescues. Furthermore, unlike those temporary costs, these inherited policies (especially the tax cuts and the drug benefit) do not fade away as the economy recovers (see Figure 1).<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"From Congressional Budget Office Estimates\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cbpp.org\/images\/cms\/\/12-16-09bud-rev6-28-10-f1.jpg\" alt=\"chart on components of deficit\" width=\"301\" height=\"366\" \/><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why does the commission recommendation include changes to Social Security and Medicare, when just undoing George W. Bush would bring a 75% larger reduction in the deficit than the commission is getting with their drastic plan? The Los Angeles Times has the story Panel: Deep cuts, new revenues needed to balance budget. The plan calls [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5128"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5133,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5128\/revisions\/5133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}