The leaders of President Barack Obama’s debt-reduction commission unveiled a revised $3.8 trillion savings plan as panel members signaled reluctance to reach a consensus to cut benefits and eliminate tax breaks.
The proposal released today would reduce income tax rates, impose spending caps and salary freezes on the federal government and cut health-care costs. Similar to a draft version released November 10, it recommends cutting Social Security and Medicare and a payroll tax holiday.
“The era of debt denial is over, and there can be no turning back,” co-chairmen Erskine Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, and Republican former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson said. “We sign our names to this plan because we love our children, our grandchildren, and our country too much not to act while we still have the chance.”
Prospects for approval are dim even as concern mounts over the US’s $13.7 trillion national debt and $1.3 trillion deficit this year. Republicans will take control of the House in January, making a political agreement with Obama and the Democratic-dominated Senate less likely.