Self-destruction For Dummies
by digby
Not that reality is relevant in this "deficit" argument, but this is still worth keeping in the back of your mind, just so you don't lose your sanity:
That's via Kevin Drum who writes:
To put this more succinctly: any serious long-term deficit plan will spend about 1% of its time on the discretionary budget, 1% on Social Security, and 98% on healthcare. Any proposal that doesn't maintain approximately that ratio shouldn't be considered serious. The Simpson-Bowles plan, conversely, goes into loving detail about cuts to the discretionary budget and Social Security but turns suddenly vague and cramped when it gets to Medicare. That's not serious.
There are other reasons the Simpson-Bowles plan isn't serious.[click here]
He concludes:
Bottom line: this document isn't really aimed at deficit reduction. It's aimed at keeping government small. There's nothing wrong with that if you're a conservative think tank and that's what you're dedicated to selling. But it should be called by its right name. This document is a paean to cutting the federal government, not cutting the federal deficit.
That a Democratic president was the one who created this commission is what makes this much more difficult to deal with. The Republicans couldn't have dreamed that they would do this for them. It's a real gift.
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