Draft Proposed Debt Reduction Plan Released Today

The slides from a proposal by the co-chairs of the President's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform can be found at http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/sites/fiscalcommission.gov/files/documents/CoChair_Draft.pdf

I am actually fairly impressed with the proposal. Unfortunately, some Senators and Representatives have already spoken out against it, saying they will not support it, even though they offer no effective alternative suggestions other than increasing debt. Sigh :(

Basic summary is that they propose eliminating all special interest tax deductions for individuals, and nearly all for businesses (keeping research tax credit, etc.) This allows them to simplify and lower marginal tax rates while still increasing overall tax revenue. They enumerate several health care cost savings proposals and save social security by gradually raising the full retirement age to 69 in 2075, gradually increasing the wages subject to social security taxes, and reducing social security benefits for those less in need.

Overall, the reductions are made up about 2/3 from reduced spending and about 1/3 from increased taxes, which seems a reasonable tradeoff.

Take a look, and if you think it's a step in the right direction, as I do, contact your Senators and Representatives to tell them you support such reform.

For more information on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, you can find their website at http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/.

more about new health care law

This morning I read an excellent article on the effects of the recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare".

You can find it here: http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/john_mauldins_outside_the_box/archive/2010/11/08/the-effects-of-obamacare.aspx

After reading it and learning more about the new law, I find my previous strong support of this legislation was naive. Yes, it does some great things: eliminates pre-existing conditions as a valid reason to deny health insurance, eliminates lifetime maximum benefit limits, expands health insurance coverage to more people, and attempts to reduce overall health care costs. However, the positive effects appear to be offset by more negative ones than I expected.

Inevitably, every article has a bias to support the points intended by the author, and this one does, too, but the factual data and arguments are persuasive. Please read the article and make your own judgment.