◼ Gang of Six plan is more smoke and mirrors - Washington Examiner Editorial
(I)s it too much to ask our esteemed lions of the Fourth Estate toiling in the White House Press Corps to at least ask the president why he opposes a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget and a supermajority in both chambers of Congress to raise taxes?
Like President Obama's disastrous $859 billion economic stimulus package and the Obamacare "reform" he and Democratic leaders rammed through Congress last year, the Go6 plan unveiled Tuesday was written in secret, with no public record of its deliberations or who participated in its creation. But the Go6 plan does offer one thing of value -- it reminds us that Washington's professional politicians thrive behind closed doors.◼ Editorial: Gang Of Six Plan: A $3.1 Tril Tax Hike - Investor's Business Daily
National Debt: No wonder President Obama has so heartily endorsed the "Gang of Six" deficit plan. Just like everything Obama has offered so far, it's short on details and long on tax hikes.◼ Why is Gang of Six plan "practical" but Cut, Cap and Balance will never pass? - Mark Tapscott/Washington Examiner
Soon after the "Gang of Six" — a bipartisan group of senators that has been trying for months to put together a deficit reduction plan — issued its new proposal, President Obama praised it as "a very significant step" that represents "the potential for bipartisan consensus."
What it really represents is Washington at its worst.
The "plan" Obama was praising isn't a plan at all, but a few pages of bullet points with vague concepts, promises of future cuts, and confusing, and at times contradictory, numbers...
According to the outline, the $1.5 trillion in "tax relief" is how the Congressional Budget Office would score the plan.
But what the gang conveniently leaves out is that the CBO's forecast has $4.6 trillion in tax hikes already baked into it. That's because the CBO baseline assumes all the Bush tax cuts get repealed, that every other temporary tax cut is left to expire, and that the alternative minimum tax continues to entrap millions more middle-class families each year.
Once you take that into account, the $1.5 trillion in "tax relief" turns instead into a $3.1 trillion tax increase over the next decade..
(I)s it too much to ask our esteemed lions of the Fourth Estate toiling in the White House Press Corps to at least ask the president why he opposes a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget and a supermajority in both chambers of Congress to raise taxes?
