[Missouribronc]

Originally Posted by Jetmeck

Tell me about this since you made it up ?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...bff6_blog.html

“I’ve put forward a specific $4 trillion deficit reduction plan…. And the way we do it is $2.50 for every cut, we ask for $1 of additional revenue…. That’s how the bipartisan commission that talked about how we should move forward suggested.”

— Obama

Though Obama often claims that his deficit-reduction plan has the “balanced approach” of the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission proposal offered by the co-chairmen, the Simpson-Bowles plan is actually quite different. (The commission failed to reach a consensus.)

For instance, Simpson-Bowles envisioned $4 trillion in debt reduction over nine years; the president’s plan would spread the cuts over 10 years. A good chunk of the savings from deficit reduction piles up in that last year. When the two plans are compared apples to apples, Simpson-Bowles yields about $6.6 trillion in deficit reduction — 50 percent more than Obama’s plan. (For a detailed look at the Simpson-Bowles, here is a link to a new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.)

By Obama’s math, you have nearly $3.8 trillion in spending cuts, compared to $1.5 trillion in tax increases (letting the Bush tax cuts expire for high-income Americans). That’s how he claims $1 of tax increases for every $2.50 of spending cuts.

But virtually no serious budget analyst agreed with this 1:2.5 accounting. Obama’s $4 trillion figure, for instance, includes counting some $1 trillion in cuts reached a year ago in budget negotiations with Congress. So no matter who is the president, the savings are already in the bank.

The Obama campaign notes that the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the president’s budget would reduce the deficit by $3.5 trillion over 10 years. The national debt, as a percentage of the gross domestic product, would rise from 73 percent to 76 percent in that period, however. The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities also pegs the administration’s deficit reduction as $3.8 trillion, but says the ratio of spending cuts to tax increases is 1 to 1.