The Fiscal Commission’s Moment of Truth

Alison Acosta Fraser / December 01, 2010

The report of the President’s Fiscal Commission is due today. As a stalemate appears increasingly likely, what appears to be an updated “chairman’s mark” to guide the commission’s discussions over the next several days was released. Like its predecessor, the report, puzzlingly titled “The Moment of Truth” (as if this will somehow garner enough votes), has some strong elements, both positive and negative.

Overall, this proposal does much the same as the previous report, though it would cut spending deeper and faster, bringing discretionary spending to 2008 levels (adjusted for inflation) and balancing the budget two years earlier by 2035. Rather than wait to phase in cuts, it would reduce spending by $50 billion immediately, by starting “at home” with congressional and federal workforce pay and other common-sense ways to reduce federal spending.

Yet, as if taxes and spending are somehow equal bookkeeping maneuvers, the tax hike is bigger and faster than the earlier version. The commissioners appear to have wasted their opportunity to be truly transformational, such as in health care, by resorting to “pilot” trials of the Rivlin–Ryan Medicare premium support proposal. And notably, again, they leave Obamacare in place, save for one major improvement: the repeal or reform of the massively irresponsible long-term care benefits in the CLASS Act section of the law. Some specifics: (more…)