Dueling proposals

by rdan

Hat tip to OMB Watch for the post on dueling papers and economists on our future federal budget dilemmas. (Most of us are ignoring the state level shortfalls to date…rdan)

Drawing a picture by numbers…what the Brookings/Heritage people did not say.

The Center on Budget Policy Priorities has issued its own report on beginning to solve the possible future budget crisis.

Over the next 75 years, the costs of making the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent is 3½ times the size of the Social Security shortfall. The Social Security trustees project that the Social Security imbalance will equal 0.56 percent of the Gross Domestic Product over the next 75 years. Based on Joint Tax Committee and Social Security Administration estimates, the costs of extending the tax cuts is approximately 1.95 percent of GDP over the same period.4 Indeed, just the cost of extending the tax cuts for the top 1 percent of Americans — those with incomes over $450,000 — exceeds the entire Social Security shortfall.(5)

(4.includes part of the AMT fix). What makes the donut proposal attractive with these kinds of numbers???

I do wonder why so many appear so concerned about responsibility but are simply arguing to increase or maintain their share of the pie. I included only this part of the report because we forgot to compare tax cut maintenance and SS shortfall arguments, two hot buttons of contention with little data used. I really hope comments are not simply statements of idealogy, but are reasoned from reality and real behavior, not ideal this and that.

There are lots of implications between the two reports, so I assume more posts will follow from the Angry Bears.

Update: I picked the quote from the CBPP report for my own purposes of comparing emoticons in what passes for discourse sometimes. It is not a reflection of the report, nor a synopsis.