WASHINGTON — The Concord Coalition today praised a bipartisan deficit-reduction plan in the House that is based on principles outlined by the Simpson-Bowles commission.
WASHINGTON — The Concord Coalition today praised a bipartisan deficit-reduction plan in the House that is based on principles outlined by the Simpson-Bowles commission.
Representatives Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) and Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio) offered the plan as an amendment to the budget resolution being considered on the House floor today. The Cooper-LaTourette plan would reduce federal deficits by more than $4 trillion, with two-thirds of the deficit savings coming from spending cuts and one-third from tax reform.
“This budget amendment is a major breakthrough,” said Robert L. Bixby, Concord’s executive director. “It gives House members a chance to consider a bipartisan deficit-reduction plan that achieves significant savings from all parts of the budget. More than any other plan under consideration, it puts results ahead of ideological purity.”
A bipartisan majority of the President’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, co-chaired by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, issued recommendations in late 2010. It took a comprehensive approach, calling for a combination of entitlement reform, tax reform and a broad array of cuts in discretionary spending for defense and domestic programs.
“We commend the House members in both parties who are supporting this effort to follow up on the commission’s recommendations, and we encourage other members of Congress to join them in pushing for comprehensive and balanced deficit reduction,” Bixby said. “As we have emphasized many times before and as Americans around the country understand, everything needs to be on the table if we are serious about bringing down our unsustainable deficits in the years ahead. It is also clear that neither party can solve our fiscal problems on its own. So bipartisan cooperation is essential.”
Concord has also applauded efforts by the Senate’s bipartisan “Gang of Six” to follow up on the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles commission.
“We hope that this week’s bipartisan budget plan in the House will encourage renewed efforts to follow up on Simpson-Bowles in the Senate as well,” Bixby said. “This will of course be difficult in an election year. But our fiscal challenges are so large that we simply cannot afford to wait.”
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The Concord Coalition is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to fiscal responsibility.
