Simpson-Bowles 2.0 and Its Sacred Cows

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


All morning I’ve been trying to decide whether I should care about the release of Simpson-Bowles 2.0. As you can guess from its name, this is yet another plan for deficit reduction from the folks who failed to get bipartisan agreement for their first plan.

So in one sense: who cares? Deficit reduction plans are a dime a dozen. There’s really nothing special about releasing a fact sheet with a bunch of numbers that add up to some other number. Anyone can do that.

On the other hand: for some reason, Simpson and Bowles get more media attention for their deficit reduction plans than most other people. So I guess we have to take it seriously whether we want to or not.

So far, though, that’s not really possible. There’s literally no detail in the summary they released today, so there’s nothing much to praise or complain about. I’m happy to see them agree that deficit reduction should be done slowly. I’m happy to see them agree that low-income workers and retirees should be protected from benefit cuts. I’m happy to see them agree that the federal tax code should remain at least as progressive as it is now. I’m happy to see them focus on healthcare costs, which really are the driver of most of our future budget problems. And I’m happy to see them name check farm subsidies and highway funding. But without details, it’s impossible to say anything further.

Except for one wee thing. Ezra Klein, bless his heart, managed to figure out the ratio of spending cuts to tax increases (it’s buried on page 3, in the phrase “and another quarter from tax reform”) and then compare it to Simpson-Bowles 1.0. And guess what? Despite their brave talk about both sides needing to “put their sacred cows on the table,” they’ve apparently decided that conservatives should put a whole lot fewer of their sacred cows on the table than they suggested in their first plan. The chart on the right tells the story. In SB 1.0, deficit reduction was moderately evenly divided between spending cuts and tax increases. In SB 2.0, they’ve suddenly decided it should be 75 percent spending cuts. That’s despite the fact that spending cuts have already been 75 percent of the deficit reduction we’ve done so far.

Why? Beats me. I guess they figure that conservative sacred cows are a little more sacred than liberal ones. Or something. But even if you take deficit reduction seriously in the first place, this sure makes it hard to take Simpson-Bowles 2.0 seriously as a plan.

UPDATE: Ezra made a correction to the chart, so I’ve updated the post to reflect that. The new chart shows the spending cuts in SB 1.0 more accurately. When you account for interest savings, they amount to $3.8 trillion, not $2.9 trillion.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate