Media Coverage and Support of New Simpson Bowles Framework

Yesterday at a Politico Playbook Breakfast, former Fiscal Commission Co-Chairs Erskine Bowles and Senator Alan Simpson put forward a new proposal, calling for an additional $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction that would replace the sequester. We discussed the framework here, and a full outline of the proposal can be found at the Moment of Truth Project. 

Since their initial presentation, the proposal has received great media attention, with mentions in editorials and news stories ranging from the Wall Street Journal, CNN, and many others. The full Politico interview can be seen below:

The following editorial boards praised the new plan from Simpson and Bowles:

Simpson-Bowles' Greatest Service: Our View - USA Today

Please, would someone give Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles an award already! The co-chairmen of President Obama's deficit-reduction panel achieved the near impossible for a Washington commission in 2011, when their plan for cutting more than $4 trillion in red ink over 10 years gained widespread and sustained credibility.

Now the bipartisan duo is at it again. Their commission disbanded two years ago, yet they are out with a new version — call it Simpson-Bowles 2.0 — that would add $1 trillion in deficit reduction

Bowles-Simpson’s Less-Grand Bargain - Bloomberg

Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the indefatigable odd couple of U.S. fiscal policy, are at it again, offering their third deficit-cutting plan in four years. You’ve got to admire their effort, if not their success rate.

Clearly, Simpson and Bowles have learned some hard lessons on the state of American politics: Their latest iteration, a $2.4 trillion package of 10-year spending cuts and tax increases, is less ambitious and more politically feasible than the $4 trillion grand bargain of 2010, the last big Simpson- Bowles blueprint.

Obama, Sequestered - Chicago Tribune

Tuesday wasn't a total washout. Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, and Alan Simpson, former Republican senator from Wyoming, floated a new framework for cutting deficits by $2.4 trillion over 10 years — just enough, probably, to finally put our national debt on a downward trajectory. The former co-chairs of the president's 2010 debt commission keep urging official Washington to stop bickering — and stop letting party politics block reforms.

The Blame Game Over Sequestration - Washington Post

This new Simpson-Bowles outline seeks $2.4 trillion in ten-year savings, on top of the $2.7 trillion already achieved — thus potentially bringing the ratio of debt-to-gross domestic product below 70 percent by early next decade and putting it on a downward path thereafter.

This is $900 billion more debt reduction than President Obama advocated in his State of the Union address. Good: Mr. Obama’s goal is not ambitious enough. It would leave debt-to-GDP at a dangerously high 73 percent by 2023, with no plan to prevent it from rising after that. Simpson-Bowles 2.0 would take some steps Mr. Obama has already contemplated — such as adjusting federal tax brackets and benefits by a more realistic inflation measure — as well as some he would not — such as going above $400 billion in health-program savings over 10 years.

Simpson and Bowles also conducted many interviews, most notably with:

With sequestration less than two weeks away, hopefully lawmakers will be able to move toward a compromise. Ideally, the sequester will be replaced with more sensible reforms that do not indiscriminately cut programs conducive to growth and responsible for our national security. Reform must address the biggest drivers of our debt in a way that protects the economic recovery and the most vulnerable. Whether it is the new framework proposed by Erskine Bowles and Al Simpson or another bipartisan plan, a smart, gradual, and sizeable deficit reduction plan would be much better for our economy than the sequester.

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