Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
.The Bowles-Simpson “Chairmen’s Mark” Deficit Reduction Plan
Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairs of President Obama’s Deficit Commission, have released a “Chairmen’s Mark,” a broad plan to reduce the federal deficit by cutting spending and raising taxes. The plan includes various options that would impose different changes on the tax side of the fiscal equation. The first option, “The Zero Plan,” would, among other things, pare away most tax expenditures, devote $80 billion annually to reduce the deficit, and use remaining revenue gains to cut tax rates.
1.Eliminate all tax expenditures—for both income and payroll taxes—except the EITC, the child credit, foreign tax credits, and a few less common preferences.
2.Eliminate tax expenditures only for income taxes, not for payroll taxes.
3.Eliminate tax expenditures only for income taxes—not for payroll taxes—but cap and restructure the tax benefits for mortgage interest, employer-sponsored health insurance, and retirement saving instead of eliminating them.
The Zero Plan in the Bowles-Simpson “Chairmen's Mark” would:
Eliminate all tax expenditures—for both income and payroll taxes—except for the child credit, the earned income tax credit, foreign tax credits, a few less common preferences (retain reduced preferences for mortgage interest, employer-sponsered health insurance and reitrement savings in the third variant listed above).
Eliminate the alternative minimum tax (AMT).
Eliminate the phaseout of personal exemptions and the limitation of itemized deductions.
Replace the current six-bracket individual tax rate schedule with a three-bracket schedule with rates of 9, 15, and 24 percent (12, 20, and 27 percent in the third variant listed above).
Tax capital gains and dividends as ordinary income.
Index tax parameters using the chained Consumer Price Index.
Increase the Social Security wage base by 2 percent per year more than the growth in the average wage (making the FICA cap $140,100 in 2015).
Phase in an increase in the federal excise tax on gasoline of 15 cents per gallon (13.5 cents per gallon on average in 2015).
Eliminate corporate tax expenditures and reduce the corporate tax rate to 26 percent (27 percent in the third variant listed above).
Details of Alternative Retaining but Limiting More Tax Expenditures:
The third variant would retain tax benefits for mortgage interest, employer-sponsored health insurance, and retirement saving, but restructure them and reduce their costs to 80 percent of their current levels. It would set higher tax rates to make up the revenue lost by those changes and the changes would apply only to income taxes.
Specifically this option would:
Convert the mortgage interest deduction to a 15 percent refundable interest credit.
Replace the exclusion from income of employer-sponsored health insurance with flat credits of $1,058 for single coverage and $2,433 for family coverage offered by employers.
Reduce the limits on contributions to employer-sponsored qualified retirement plans and individual retirement accounts to 43 percent of their current level.
Cap the amount of tax-free accruals within both defined benefit and defined contribution retirement accounts.
Replace the current six-bracket individual tax rate schedule with a three-bracket schedule with rates of 12 percent, 20 percent, and 27 percent
They won't.
Go go go Fiscal Cliff!
Right over baby!!
Obama HIMSELF doesn't like Simpson/Bowles, why would it have ANY chance of passing?
Simpson, if you remember actually praised Paul Ryan, a slight Obama may never forgive.
They won't.
Go go go Fiscal Cliff!
Right over baby!!
Go over the cliff then do it
The Republicans should push for passage of Simpson, Bowles, It’s better than anything they’ll get from Obama on their own. Tax reform in there, it’s a descent plan. I say push Obama’s own debt commission plan right down his throat!
The Republicans should push for passage of Simpson, Bowles, Its better than anything theyll get from Obama on their own. Tax reform in there, its a descent plan. I say push Obamas own debt commission plan right down his throat!
The fact of the matter is that any plan which will not raise taxes on people making more than $20,000 a month is not a good plan. The Republicans need to wrap their heads around that. 60% of the American electorate believes that since the rich have gained from the Reagan/Bushes administrations it's time they began to pay a fair share again:
We need reform within our educational system to even the playing grounds between poor and rich. You just don't do this by stealing from one to give to another.
That's Marxism. Marxism is somehow stealing from the producers to give to the failures.
Doesn't work and will never work. We need to look towards japan, South Korea and China for what they're doing right.
How about we look to the Constituion. China?..Japan? Please give me a break
we need solutions to our physical problems this isn't China or Japan
We need a system that educates all classes to work towards success.
The Republicans should push for passage of Simpson, Bowles, It’s better than anything they’ll get from Obama on their own. Tax reform in there, it’s a descent plan. I say push Obama’s own debt commission plan right down his throat!
The fact of the matter is that any plan which will not raise taxes on people making more than $20,000 a month is not a good plan. The Republicans need to wrap their heads around that. 60% of the American electorate believes that since the rich have gained from the Reagan/Bushes administrations it's time they began to pay a fair share again:
Do we want solutions here or politics? Raising tax rates for people making over $200,000 is not going to solve anything. Your stupid graphs don't mean shit, We need solutions not more petty bullshit from idiots
They won't.
Go go go Fiscal Cliff!
Right over baby!!
Go over the cliff then do it
It isn't Democrats in a panic over this.
The fact of the matter is that any plan which will not raise taxes on people making more than $20,000 a month is not a good plan. The Republicans need to wrap their heads around that. 60% of the American electorate believes that since the rich have gained from the Reagan/Bushes administrations it's time they began to pay a fair share again:
Do we want solutions here or politics? Raising tax rates for people making over $200,000 is not going to solve anything. Your stupid graphs don't mean shit, We need solutions not more petty bullshit from idiots
It's $250,000 per year.
You folks amaze me. I voted Republican for the first thirty years of my adult life. Voted for Eisenhower, Goldwater, Nixon three times...even voted for Reagan once. In the eighties when I saw what they were doing I quit voting and didn't vote for anyone for twenty years. I've voted against the Republicans three times, 2004,2008 and 2012.
The party used to stand for balanced budgets, small government and individual rights. Now they are in the pockets of the corporations and the upper 2%. I believe I'm witnessing the end of a political party.
The upper 2% can't have all the money....it won't work. The majority of the electorate just spoke and they have spoken loudly
Obama.......332
Romulus......206
The charts represent the truth...you should learn how to interpret them:
Do we want solutions here or politics? Raising tax rates for people making over $200,000 is not going to solve anything. Your stupid graphs don't mean shit, We need solutions not more petty bullshit from idiots
It's $250,000 per year.
You folks amaze me. I voted Republican for the first thirty years of my adult life. Voted for Eisenhower, Goldwater, Nixon three times...even voted for Reagan once. In the eighties when I saw what they were doing I quit voting and didn't vote for anyone for twenty years. I've voted against the Republicans three times, 2004,2008 and 2012.
The party used to stand for balanced budgets, small government and individual rights. Now they are in the pockets of the corporations and the upper 2%. I believe I'm witnessing the end of a political party.
The upper 2% can't have all the money....it won't work. The majority of the electorate just spoke and they have spoken loudly
Obama.......332
Romulus......206
The charts represent the truth...you should learn how to interpret them:
I could care less who you voted for, as I said for your stupid charts and punish the "rich" crap doesn't do anything to solve our problems now does it? Democrats are as much into Crony capitalism as anybody else idiot
It's $250,000 per year.
You folks amaze me. I voted Republican for the first thirty years of my adult life. Voted for Eisenhower, Goldwater, Nixon three times...even voted for Reagan once. In the eighties when I saw what they were doing I quit voting and didn't vote for anyone for twenty years. I've voted against the Republicans three times, 2004,2008 and 2012.
The party used to stand for balanced budgets, small government and individual rights. Now they are in the pockets of the corporations and the upper 2%. I believe I'm witnessing the end of a political party.
The upper 2% can't have all the money....it won't work. The majority of the electorate just spoke and they have spoken loudly
Obama.......332
Romulus......206
The charts represent the truth...you should learn how to interpret them:
I could care less who you voted for, as I said for your stupid charts and punish the "rich" crap doesn't do anything to solve our problems now does it? Democrats are as much into Crony capitalism as anybody else idiot
Hey Numbnuts....the charts represent the truth. Only the Republicans and Fox News fail to catch on:
Obama.....332
Romulus....206
...Where do we go from here? Raising taxes on upper income people is not going to solve the problem. So what's the point exactly? 
