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- iHaveNet.com: Economy
by Alex M. Parker
Bipartisan budget experts urge the super committee to look at revenues and think big. Will they?
With its deadline swiftly approaching, the so-called super committee got some bipartisan cover from a respected panel of budget experts on Tuesday. The panelists testified like a quartet of Cassandras, warning the committee against inaction and urging it to consider sweeping changes to the federal government.
"I have great respect for you, individually. Collectively, I'm worried you're going to fail, fail the country." said Erskine Bowles, the former chief of staff for President Clinton and cochair of President Obama's fiscal commission. The experts all also urged the super committee to use consider revenues as part of the bargain, along with significant changes to programs like
Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, who cochaired the Obama deficit commission along with Bowles, urged the committee members to forget about political fallout and stick to their guns. Recounting battles against the retiree group
The super committee is supposed to come up with at least $1.2 trillion, and as much as $1.5 trillion, in cuts to the federal debt over the next 10 years. But the panelists urged them to consider much larger cuts, as much as $4 trillion, including overhauls of the tax code and defense spending, as well as
A lack of reliable information about the super committee's dealings has lead to tea leaf-reading by observers. Will the testimony from respected budget experts give the committee the political cover it needs to go with an ambitious approach? Why did the super committee schedule this hearing -- right before its approaching Nov. 23 deadline, no less? The questions from super committee members revealed little. Republicans asked the panelists about a premium-support
There is one area where Republicans on the super committee might be willing to consider additional revenues. During the hearing, Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, cochair of the committee, asked the panelists whether they favored a so-called "chained" consumer price index, or CPI. All of them did. The chained CPI, discussed but ultimately abandoned during the debt ceiling talks this summer, would slightly trim
Economists claim that a chained CPI is a better measure of how the cost of living rises, but a benefit cut is still a benefit cut. Minutes after the hearing was over, Democratic staffers from the
Available at Amazon.com:
Grim Warnings for the Deficit 'Super Committee'
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Grim Warnings for the Deficit 'Super Committee'