Birth Control Debate: NH Lawmaker Proposes Repeal of 'Obsolete And Outdated' Contraception Law

Thoma adds that Tim Geithner actually backed off of one aspect of Bowles-Simpson, the Social Security changes, because they were, in Geithner’s words, too tilted on the side of benefit cuts. But the problem lies in making Bowles-Simpson as the wise middle ground in the debate. When the President reached out to John Boehner with a deficit plan that was actually to the right of Bowles-Simpson, again playing on the opposing turf, then it was foreordained that Bowles-Simpson would become the moderate compromise, even though it couldn’t even get a vote on its own committee.

Thoma links to a Treasury Department blog that makes almost exactly the point I’ve been making – the President’s budget doesn’t shy away from the long-sought goal of deficit reduction, and at the same level as before. It changes some of the ratios of how the deficit reduction gets achieved, but by and large the same goals are in the foreground.

The Budget released by the President this week uses a balanced approach to achieve more than $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. This level of savings and the manner in which they are accomplished are broadly consistent with the bipartisan deficit reduction proposals put forward by the Bowles-Simpson Commission and the Senate’s bipartisan “Gang of Six.” Using this balanced approach, the President’s Budget reduces deficits from about 9 percent of GDP in 2011 to below 3 percent by 2018, and stabilizes the debt as a share of the economy by the middle of the decade.

In general, there is little disagreement on the magnitude of savings that are needed over the next decade to put us on a sustainable fiscal course. Rather, the main difference between the President and Republicans are related to the composition of these savings.


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Read the Article at HuffingtonPost