House Democratic Caucus Submits Recommendations

With only a day left for Committees to send recommendations to the Super Committee, the House Democrats decided to take an omnibus approach. Letters from ranking members of all 16 committees were sent in one package, with an overall letter from Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). These letters are more a laundry list of recommendations than a coherent fiscal plan, so providing a topline savings number would be difficult. Nonetheless, here are some of the highlights:

• Job creation: Not surprisingly, the number one common theme in these letters was job creation and the number one plan was the American Jobs Act. Investment in surface transportation, broadband, and other infrastrcture projects showed up a couple times as well. Expanded help for homeowners in a variety of ways also made an appearance.
• Medicare prescription drugs: This area follows up on a letter that a group of House Democrats sent earlier to the Super Committee. House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman (D-CA) mentioned providing increased rebates to low-income seniors in Part D, one of the bigger ticket savings items in the letters. Also, Elijah Cummings (D-MD) of the Oversight Committee supported allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices and to combine the purchasing power of all Federal Employee Health Benefit (FEHB) plans to negotiate prices as well.
• Revenue odds-and-ends: Besides the implicit support for allowing the 2001/2003 upper-income tax cuts to expire, the letters included a number of smaller loophole-closers and revenue-raisers. Oil and gas tax preferences were targeted, and there were proposals to slap a fee on banks, legalize and tax internet gambling, and increase the guarantee fees that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge. Comprehensive tax reform was mentioned a few times (as well as in the overall letter), but no proposals were made on that front.

For the purpose of simplicity, we will count these letters as one submission, making it the 15th in our Super Committee tracker. We will continue to update the table as remaining committees rush to meet their deadline.