Federal debt reduction

I’m starting to like the chairmen of President Obama’s bipartisan commission on reducing the federal debt. First they were honest and blunt enough to say that all federal revenues currently are eaten by Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and that the growing debt is like a cancer. (Read it here.)
Now they have a draft proposal that says we need deep cuts in domestic and military spending, as well as a revamp of the tax code that does away with a lot of tax breaks. (Read it here.)

The draft also would raise retirement age for Social Security to 69, raise payroll taxes for Social Security and raise the gasoline tax. Meanwhile, it would reduce individual and corporate income tax rates, which would be more than offset by the loss of tax breaks for things like mortgage interest payments.
It’s not a popular plan. Both sides of the political spectrum have attacked it. Republicans say they want to focus more on cuts. Liberals don’t like much of anything about it. In fact, the draft isn’t likely to pass even among the rest of the deficit commission, let alone in Congress.
And yet no one has anything better, or even realistic, to offer instead.
The chairmen, Erskine Bowles and Alan K. Simpson, are saying what needs to be said, even if people might argue the details.
Since this is the time of year to honor veterans, it’s a good time to think about sacrifice. Simply put, politicians have led Americans to believe they don’t have to sacrifice. Not for the war — we have a volunteer military that will take care of that, and we’ll just borrow the money. Not for the Great Recession — we’ll just print more money and come up with programs to artificially prop up sagging home and auto sales (these haven’t worked, by the way).
But solving the serious national deficit problem will take sacrifice. We can’t have all the programs we think we need. I’m dead set against tax increases, but if you can lower income tax rates while eliminating a lot of deductions, that may be a relatively painless way to increase revenue.
It’s at least where the discussion should start. Now let’s see where President Obama decides to take it.