The Do-Nothing Plan: How Congress can balance the budget in eight years by literally doing nothing.

[stevedeshazer]

http://www.slate.com/id/2291054?wpisrc=newsletter_tis

The Simpson-Bowles blue-ribbon deficit commission longs to slash Social Security and defense spending. The Bipartisan Policy Center's Alice Rivlin and Peter Domenici yearn for a value-added tax. Rep. Paul Ryan's politically deft, economically daft plan conspires to shift the burden of health care spending, cut taxes for the rich, and make up the difference with fantastical supply-side growth assumptions. And President Obama is likely to embrace the Simpson-Bowles recommendations when he announces his long-term budget plan on Wednesday.

One might think that we need all of these big plans, these grand bargains, because of the enormity of the fiscal challenge the country faces. The United States is swimming in a sea of red ink, with trillion-dollar annual deficits and an unfathomably gigantic cumulative debt.

But the truth is we don't need any of these plans. Every one of them is entirely unnecessary for balancing the budget and eventually reducing the debt. They may even be counterproductive. Thus, Slate proposes the Do-Nothing Plan for Deficit Reduction, a meek, cowardly effort to wrest the country back into the black. The overarching principle of the Do-Nothing Plan is this: Leave everything as is. Current law stands, and spending and revenue levels continue according to the Congressional Budget Office's baseline projections. Everyone walks away. Paul Ryan goes fishing. Sen. Harry Reid kicks back with a ginger ale. The rest of Congress gets back to bickering about mammograms. Miraculously, the budget just balances itself, in about a decade.

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[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[GomezLives]

2. Yes we can!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Fearless]

3. Yeah except things cost more in the future... Education... roads...

prisons... health care. So it won't work. They need to raise revenue now. Instead of saddling the working person with de facto cuts later. Tax the wealthy.

[jeff47]

9. Doing nothing does that

The Bush tax cuts will sunset, and taxes will go up on the wealthy.

[Fearless]

11. And the middle and working classes are still hurt by the cuts which

Primarily affect them. They need public education and health care subsidies for instance. And taxes on the wealthy need to be up near Truman levels if me really want to control the deficit and pay down the debt.

[jeff47]

13. Cuts require action

Doing nothing also means no cuts.

And no, we don't need "Truman level" taxes. Clinton-level taxes will do just fine.

[Fearless]

14. Doing nothing IS a cut because of inflation.

And no. We have a 14 trillion dollar debt. Truman levels are needed.

[jeff47]

15. Most of what is being cut is indexed to inflation, so doing nothing is not a cut.

And our debt is not a big deal. It's being discussed as a big deal, because of the people who want to enact savage cuts. The way you know it isn't a big deal is bond prices are still incredibly low, and there's several advanced countries in much worse debt situations that are still borrowing incredibly cheaply (such as Japan, which has been running very large deficits since the 90s).

Want to get rid of 60% of the deficit? Get unemployment back to 5%. More jobs = more taxes. The remaining 40% of the deficit goes away with Clinton-level taxes.

[Fearless]

16. Not with oil prices where they are. Sorry no dice.

[jeff47]

17. Now that's completely random

You might as well have said "NUH UH!!!!".

[Hoyt]

4. Hopefully author is a better predictor than his assertion that Obama will embrace SB Commission.

I've not seen anything that leads me to believe that will happen, notwithstanding all the fretting going on here. He might propose increasing the SS cap, as S-Bowles. He might even propose a public option, as SBowles -- at least I wish. Or maybe a big reduction in military spending, as S-Bowles. But most of the rest will not be part of his budget.

[Demeter]

5. No, Won't Happen

If you want change, you have to make change. You have to suck those hoards of cash accumulated by the obscenely wealthy back into the real economy, out of the financial black hole economy.

You have to keep your home-grown capital at home, not let it escape to foreign lands. And the same with your home-grown jobs.

You have to act and plan so that being a country, a representative democracy, actually means something, and isn't just pretty words recited on ceremonial occasions.

[whoneedstickets]

6. This proves the whole thing is a revenue problem generated by the Bush tax cuts.

There is no budget crisis. There is only greed.

[stevedeshazer]

7. You get it.

That's the whole point.

Thanks.

[NothingRight]

8. If only we could get them to understand

Slate's do nothing concept has some solid thoughts and truths, which already makes it nearly impossible to sell to GOP leaders who don't operate in the realms of solid thoughts or truths.

However, the current debt problem does require some action, or we won't truly stabilize our economy to reverse the decay we have seen over the last decade.

First and foremost, we need to end the wars and bring our troops home. Contrary to the views of the conservative war hawks, this will not compromise national security or risk further destabilization of the region. If they were too dim to realize it before, recent events in the region should make it pretty clear the region is unstable as it is, and that will only change when the citizens of that region decide to change it. It is not a military problem. We need to take our big stick and go home, support the efforts of nations to find freedom and democracy, and allow the region to solve its own problems.

Second, NAFTA needs to either be repealed or completely reformed to prevent it from being a gateway for American jobs to foreign countries. If a manufacturer chooses to open or operate a plant in a country that does not have environmental or labor rights, then they should be charged a fee equitable to the cost increase to keep that plant here for any products they expect to sell here. If the company decides to pass that cost on to the customer, then they will face the pressure of pricing themselves out of the business.

Third, the tax loopholes that have companies with a headquarters in Chicago claiming their operation is predominantly operating out of places like Luxembourg and avoiding their share of income taxes must be closed. Closing them would enable us to lower the corporate income tax rate significantly and keep the rate competitive while still enduring the revenue is kept where it belongs.

These ideas are just as extreme to the GOP because they are also based in logic, but it is this type of policy changes that will guarantee a truly strong, balanced economic future for our nation.

[stevedeshazer]

10. Good post. I agree with your ideas.

I just don't think this can happen in the currently charged political climate.

[Sherman A1]

12. I can think of no better group capable of doing nothing

than the Congress of the United States.

Unfortunately, they will find a means of screwing this concept (and us in the process) up.

[yurbud]

18. this might be too daring and divisive for Obama.