Fiscal Commission to Release Final Report by Tomorrow Morning

The December 1st deadline for the President’s Fiscal Commission has nearly arrived. With a Co-Chairs draft proposal already in circulation (see our commentary here), the commission’s final proposal is something CRFB is eagerly awaiting. We were given a small taste of what is to come during today’s press conference.

• The final proposal will be released either sometime tonight or tomorrow morning (note that the Commission will be holding a public meeting tomorrow at 9:30am, which we will be live tweeting on our Twitter page!). Co-Chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson said that Commission members will have until Friday to vote in support of the plan or not.
• The revised plan will not be a “watered-down” version of the draft proposal and will not include less than the $3.8 trillion in savings over the coming decade identified in the draft proposal.
• The revised plan will include significant reform of the tax expenditure budget, which Simpson and Bowles referred to as "tax earmarks."
• The revised plan includes reforming tax expenditures for deficit reduction as well as for tax base broadening and rate reduction.

No other specifics were given.

The Co-Chairs reaffirmed the important point that no deficit reduction will “balance the books” on the backs of the most vulnerable. They also declared that the “era of deficit denial is over.”

Be sure to continue checking back to CRFB for more commentary as soon as the Commission releases its final proposal.