deficit panel

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Super Committee Dems Propose $3T Debt Deal

It includes big slashes to Medicare

(Newser) - Democrats threw a whopper of a deal onto the table in a closed-door super committee meeting yesterday, offering a plan that would slash between $2.5 trillion and $3 trillion from the deficit over the next 10 years, while providing between $200 billion and $300 billion in new stimulus spending,...

GOP Makes Its Debt Super-Committee Picks

Here you go: Hensarling, Camp, Upton, Kyl, Toomey, Portman

(Newser) - We're three-quarters of the way there. The GOP today announced its picks to serve on the debt "super committee," bringing the total number of seats filled to nine. At the top of John Boehner's list is Texan Jeb Hensarling, who will co-chair the committee with Democratic...

All Eyes Turn to Deficit Panel, Herculean $1.5T Task

Committee must come up with $1.5T in cuts

(Newser) - The debt deal has been signed, but the work is far from over: Now a special committee must figure out how to cut $1.5 trillion more from the deficit. The bipartisan panel, which will be composed of six Democrats and six Republicans, was created by the measure after President...

Deficit Gurus: Glass Still 'Half-Full'

Bowles and Simpson see time to improve Obama budget

(Newser) - Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson think that President Obama's proposed budget "goes nowhere close" enough in reducing the US deficit, but the deficit-reduction panel's co-chairs say they "see the cup as half-full." "[We] think there is the real possibility that a bipartisan deficit reduction plan can...

Obama Won't Back Social Security Cuts


 Obama Won't 
 Back Social 
 Security Cuts 
SOTU PREVIEW

Obama Won't Back Social Security Cuts

...Or any other specific deficit-cutting measures in State of the Union address

(Newser) - President Obama will talk about the importance of cutting the deficit in his State of the Union address tonight, but he’s unlikely to endorse any specific steps for doing so, administration sources tell the Washington Post . In particular, Obama has explicitly assured Democratic lawmakers and advocates for the elderly...

Deficit Chiefs Unveil Plan, With New Tax Holiday

Plan would raise retirement age, cut tax exemptions

(Newser) - Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles formally unveiled their 59-page plan to cut the deficit yesterday, and it’s much the same as the draft proposal floated a few weeks back. The pair, who co-chair President Obama’s deficit reduction commission, want to raise the Social Security retirement age, cut Medicare,...

Let's Finally Shrink the 'Military Industrial Complex'
Let's Finally Shrink the
'Military Industrial Complex'
eugene robinson

Let's Finally Shrink the 'Military Industrial Complex'

Eugene Robinson: Budget realities make it essential

(Newser) - Of all the controversial ideas in the Bowles-Simpson deficit-reduction plan, the "most welcome" is the one about slashing defense spending and at long last taming the infamous military industrial complex, writes Eugene Robinson. He lays the blame for out-of-control spending on Republicans, who talk a good game on small...

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