NYT Supports Deficit Reduction Proposal

The draft deficit reduction proposal announced this week by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairs of President Obama's deficit reduction commission, is generally supported in this New York Times editorial.

It lays out sensible principles, prominent among them that deficit reduction should start gradually, beginning in 2012, to avoid disrupting the fragile economic recovery. It also affirms the need to protect the most vulnerable Americans and to invest in education, infrastructure and research and development.

Then it does what any successful deficit reduction plan must do: It puts everything on the table, including tax reform to raise revenue and cuts in spending on health care and defense. It even dares to mention the need to find significant savings in Social Security, Medicare and other mandatory programs.

Economists across the political spectrum agree that deficit reduction requires three things: reduction in entitlement spending, reduction in defense spending, and an increase in tax revenue. The release of this proposal signifies the beginning of the debate on how to go about doing those three things. The proposal is a serious beginning attempt that is welcome after a mid-term campaign filled with posturing on the deficit that was anything but serious.

--Ballard Burgher