What I Will Not Shut Up About

Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles were interviewed on Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN on Sunday.

What’s interesting is that only the transcripts of the interview are available online, not the actual video of the interview.  Fareed must be trying to make some money on iTunes downloads.

So see it or read it.  That’s an order.  Some highlights.

• Alan Simpson on bringing down the deficit: You can’t cut spending your way out of this hole.  You can’t grow your way out of this hole and you can’t tax your way out of this hole.
• Alan Simpson on Congress not compromising: This is madness. If you want to be a purest, go somewhere on a mountain top and praise the east or something, but if you want to be in politics, you learn to compromise and you learn to compromise an issue without compromising yourself. Show me a guy who won’t compromise and I’ll show you a guy with rock for brains.
• Bowles on markets reactions: We have these senseless, mindless, across-the-board cuts that come from the sequester that comes as a result of a failed super committee. You know, all of those are hitting at once and the economic effect of those just next year, about 2 percent of GDP.  If we have a negative effect of 2 percent of GDP, we’ll be right back in recession and you better believe that the people of America will be calling on these members of Congress to do something.
• Simpson on Obama shelving the commission plan: [Obama] would have been ripped by the Democrats saying, “Why you rotten — you’re digging into the precious, precious Medicare.”  And the Republicans would have rejected — if he’d embraced the Republicans, en mass, in the House would have rejected it. So, either way he’s going to get hammered so he’s playing the waiting game.

Here’s the Informed Not Inflamed Take:

1. Simpson-Bowles will be implemented in some way – after the elections – no matter who wins.
2. The media bias on this is somewhat excusable.  I couldn’t get NECN to really discuss this.  Part of the bias is it is too difficult to explain on TV.  The other part is the media — especially the cable news outlets — follow the lead of the political parties.
3. Here’s the actual PDF of the report.  Read it.  If you don’t read it, then you’re not a true American. 
4. Yes, I am using whacko right-wing tactics.  Sorry, but it apparently works.  OK, if you read it, then you will get a tax break.  Yes, I just lied to you.  Get over it. 
5. Seriously, we solve this deficit problem — and it will take a decade — then we are preparing for a bright US future where we will most likely have an upper edge because of technology and resources without crippling deficits.
6. Is this a perfect plan?  No.  But it’s an outline for reducing the deficit while also growing the economy.
7. The plan calls for across-the-board pain: ending Bush tax cuts while reducing Medicare and Social Security benefits. This is not George Bush telling you to go shopping to win the war.  There’s stuff in the plan Republicans and Democrats hate; that’s why they have to wait until after the election.

Informed Not Inflamed Bottom Line:

To get US economic stability again, it is up to YOU.

Tagged as: 2012 presidential Republican candidates, A Measure of Media Bias, alan simpson and erskine bowles, bias in media examples, deficit reduction, examples of bias in the media, Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN, John Daly NECN, Medicare vouchers, Obamacare, Peterson Foundation poll, right-wing whackos