Let's Negotiate Savings Up Instead of Down

As we said earlier this week [3], the Super Committee needs to be finding ways to negotiate its way up to larger savings, not working to push savings down to find the lowest common denominator. Unfortunately, the trend seems to be continuing. According to recent reports [4], Super Committee members have been working on a possible package of between $500 billion and $1 trillion in savings.

That's not going to cut it if we're going to succeed in putting debt on a downward path as a share of the economy. Compared to how much debt we'll be adding over the next ten years, based on CRFB's Realistic Baseline [5], these newer offers are just a drop in the bucket.

^{^Also would use war savings to pay for jobs bill and doc fix}^{*Difference between CRFB Realistic Debt in FY 2011 and FY 2021}

We need to restore faith in the strength of the economy down the road and in the political system. Let's not waste this great opportunity.