Coburn proposes $9 trillion deficit cut measure

Source: AP/Yahoo

WASHINGTON (AP) — One of the Senate's staunchest budget-cutters unveiled Monday a massive plan to cut the nation's deficit by $9 trillion over the coming decade, including $1 trillion in tax increases opposed by most of his fellow Republicans.

The plan by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is laced with politically perilous proposals like raising to 70 the age at which people can claim their full Social Security benefits. It would cut farm subsidies, Medicare, student aid, housing subsidies for the poor, and funding for community development grants. Coburn even takes on the powerful veterans' lobby by proposing that some veterans pay more for medical care and prescription drugs.

Coburn would also eliminate $1 trillion in tax breaks over the coming decade, earning him an immediate rebuke from Americans for Tax Reform, an anti-tax organization with which Coburn has had a running feud. He would block taxpayers from claiming the mortgage interest deduction on second homes and limit it to homes worth $500,000. He would also ease taxpayers into higher tax brackets more quickly by using a smaller measure of inflation to adjust the brackets.

Coburn was a member of President Barack Obama's fiscal commission and voted for its plan to cut the budget by about $4 trillion over a decade. He recently dropped out of the closely watched "Gang of Six" senators seeking a bipartisan agreement to rein in deficits and break through the partisanship engulfing official Washington over the deficit.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/coburn-proposes-9-trillion-deficit-cut-measure-192145582.html

If I reduce Defense $100 Billion and keep it level for 10 years - have I cut a Trillion? Then lets DO IT!

I'd like deeper cuts, and a ratio closer to 1:1 (I'd settle for 3:5)

And then there's those "wars."

But at least Coburn has the balls to stand up and lay out a plan and stand behind it. I've taken shit for defending him before on DU. I disagree with 99% of what he says and believes, but he is one of the few generally honest guys in Congress and should be recognized for that. Where the fuck is Harry Reid's proposal? What is it?

In this case, let's take his defense cuts and double them. Let's add repealing the bush tax cuts to his ending of tax loopholes, and then we'll see where we stand on the other cuts. Raising medicare ages is a non-starter. There is no "free market" in health care. It is a corporatist screw job by companies who are exempt from the anti-trust laws. Therefore, older people can't get decent health insurance (and most of us can't afford it anyway).

The only viable solution is single payer.

even that won't balance the budget.

how lame.

And it is mostly gutting retiree family benefits.

And yes if you are going to cut DoD a lot of people will get hit including retirees. The DoD budget is not just bullets you know.

Let's pay members of congress a per diem, to be paid by their states, and limiting the time that congress meets, down to the first 6 months of the year! That way they can return home to their full time jobs...upon returning they would have to submit a voucher in order to get paid.

Plus this would put pressure on lobbyists...because they would have to open offices all over the country...and this would create jobs for local areas.

What the DoD needs is a 30%-50% annual budget cut overall.

You do know of course that with a cut that size pensions, health benefits and military pay would all have to be cut significantly.

Also nuts. But he and Obama are tight, so there's no telling.

Austerity didn't work in 1932... can't work now.

on the Gold Standard..they could't spend the capital needed to life it? What is the difference with this austerity mode?

'needed to lift it'

* Raising to 70 the age at which people can claim their full Social Security benefits


* Peg future benefits to a less-generous measure of inflation and curb benefit increases even more for the top 40 percent of earners.


* Cuts to the Medicare program for the elderly and the Medicaid health plan for the poor and disabled would total $2.6 trillion over 10 years, far more than proposed by the fiscal commission or House Republicans.


* Raise the Medicare retirement age to 67 by 2027 and then gradually increasing it until the retirement age hits 69 in 2080. Would raise by two months every year beginning with people who were born in 1949
(who will turn 65 in 2014).


* Raise Medicare premiums for doctor visits so that premiums pay 35 percent of such costs instead of the 25 percent currently covered.


* Transfers Medicaid to states


* Cuts 300,000 jobs from the federal workforce


* Hundreds of billions from the departments of Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, and Education. NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Small Business Administration and numerous other government agencies are also hit with billions in reductions.


* Block military retirees from the Tricare Prime health care plan, the option with the lowest out-of-pocket cost and raise the prescription drug copayment under the program, as well as require higher out-of-pocket fees.


* Closes Department of Defense (DOD) elementary schools and end subsidies for DOD grocery stores



http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20080416-503544.html

"Transfers Medicaid to states"

This would kill Medicaid as we know it. States would have to take on the entire burden of Medicaid funding, something they haven't shown they can do with only a 30-40% contribution.

This bill is toxic. It stinks, it smells, and just because it has some tax "increases" (mostly in the form of deductions, not tax rates) doesn't mean this is any good.

If the president goes along with this proposal, I will not vote for him. Period.

Are you even a Democrat?

much. Meaning he is just BS posturing and cutting all the wrong things. If any of these goons really wanted to cut spending they would end the wars and cut defense. Trying to say, call there bluff, didn't make myself clear.