Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's economic plan received a lot of attention at Tuesday night's debate. Regardless of what one thinks about the plan itself, the fact that it generated so much discussion is a positive development. With so many voters justifiably concerned about the economy and yearning for their leaders to adopt sound policies that will spur growth in the short and long-run, the focus on Cain's plan underscores the dearth of concrete ideas from policymakers and the public's desire for action.

Building on a report he made last year on budget process reform, Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) has taken the next step in his crusade to fix the budget. The sequel is a report with a comprehensive list of 60 recommendations on how to help put our budget on a more sustainable path. These recommendations run the gamut of options, covering most areas of the budget.

Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart spent part of the episode talking about our favorite topic: how to fix the federal budget. Needless to say, the show's suggestions were pretty hilarious.

Click here to check it out or watch below:

Today, the Center for American Progress released a plan to get specific on our growing deficits and debt. Or, rather, they've released five illustrative plans, specifically endorsing one--the 50/50 plan--as a balanced compromise.

You might have missed it last week if you were preparing to chow down on some turkey, but Our Fiscal Security (OFS)--a joint project of the Economic Policy Institute, Demos, and the Century Foundation--became another in a long list of groups/experts to put out a specific proposal for our long-term fiscal situation.

Yesterday, in the pages of the New York Times, CRFB President Maya MacGuineas joined 15 other experts in proposing how one might begin to cut the federal budget deficit. Contributors spanned the ideological spectrum, with their ideas including raising the retirement age, medical liability reform, new types of taxes and tax reform, and defense spending cuts.

We at CRFB have had our morning coffee and are trying to find ways to make the Fiscal Commission’s co-chair proposal better. CRFB president Maya MacGuineas has a few ideas this morning at CNN Money. But for the most part, it is a solid proposal full of good ideas.

With the unexpected release of the draft proposal from the co-chairs of the President’s fiscal commission, the naysayers have come out of the woodwork. But as we have seen all too often, the critics are willing to blast the report without offering alternatives for fixing our fiscal house.

Continuing our analysis of the President’s Fiscal Commission Draft Report, let's look at what the Co-Chair proposal does on the spending side of the budget.

Overall, the proposal identifies $2.2 trillion in spending savings from 2012-2020, with about $730 billion coming from mandatory programs and about $1.5 trillion from discretionary programs, relative to the President's FY 2011 budget request.

On the discretionary budget, the Co-Chairs propose:

In a move much earlier than we expected, the Co-Chairs of the White House Fiscal Commission released their plan on how to get control of our national debt. The proposal is a drastic change from our current fiscal course and should be a document of great significance in the fiscal policy discourse. Before we get into specifics, we should point out that this is not the plan--14 out of 18 Commission members still have to agree to the recommendations.