oldfart
Older than dirt
Democrats say they will compromise, but don't
Democrats say give us a list of cuts to make, they get them and reject it.
Democrats say its the Republican's fault, they say a lot don't they?
OK, lets talk about efforts to reduce the deficit. Start by taking SimpsonBowles as a baseline. It proposed $2.9 trillion in spending cuts and $2.6 trillion in tax increases.
This is almost an even split, so the idea that most of the deficit reduction should be on the spending side and that we can do deficit reduction without tax increases is a novel idea, but it is certainly contrary to the actual SimpsonBowles plan.
So what has happened on the spending side? Congress has already passed and the President has already signed 70 percent of the discretionary cuts. Under the Budget Control Act, discretionary spending will be $1.5 trillion lower from 2013 to 2022 than was projected in the Congressional Budget Offices 2010 baseliner. That means that 70 percent of S-Bs cuts to discretionary spending are already done. But the $1.4 trillion of security spending cuts have not even been spelled out.
So which of the SB tax increases have been implemented? Lets look:
1) End the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000 before tax reform talks.NOT DONE
2) 15 cents per gallon increase in federal gasoline taxNOT DONE
3) Tax dividends and capital gains as ordinary incomeNOT DONE
4) Converting itemized deductions for charitable contributions and mortgage interest into a 12% non-refundable creditNOT DONE
5) Phase out the exclusion of health care insurance from employees income by 2038NOT DONE
6) Eliminate income exemption for interest on state and local bondsNOT DONE
7) The change in taxation of Social Security benefits which would raise $238 billion over ten yearsNOT DONE
In all, of the $2.6 trillion of tax increases in SimpsonBowles, precisely zero has been enacted into law. I wonder why?
So the fact is that since 2010, most of the non-security spending cuts have been enacted while none of the tax increases have been enacted. Democrats have been serious about spending cuts and have delivered; Republicans have been vague about revenues and have neither proposed any revenue increases nor agreed to any.