One Bad Mess, Two Decent Plans

[Geee]

National Review:

One Bad Mess, Two Decent Plans
The Democrats run from a Democrat’s deficit plan.

Is there any chance we can come to grips with our short-term and long-term fiscal problems — the huge current federal budget deficit and the huge looming increases in entitlement spending?

Maybe so. Or at least the chances seem a little better after the release of two sets of proposals in the weeks after the election.

One came from Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican senator Alan Simpson, chairmen of the bipartisan commission Barack Obama set up in February to address the subject. Rather than wait for a consensus from their 18-member commission, the two presented their own array of proposals to stabilize the national debt at 60 percent of gross domestic product and cut the budget deficit to 2 percent of GDP by 2015.

Another came from an initiative from Clinton budget director Alice Rivlin and former longtime Senate Budget Committee chairman Pete Domenici that would similarly stabilize the national debt and would cut the budget deficit to 1 percent.