Are tax “deductions” just earmarks by another name? UPDATE: The lowdown on today’s Debt Commission report

The President’s Debt Commission has formally announced it’s plan which includes revamping the current tax system by lowering all tax rates and eliminating most tax deductions. The screaming has already begun, but Co-Chair Erskine Bowles says the time is right to dump these … earmarks?

There’s plenty here to get plenty of people mad. Increasing the retirement age is like a dagger through the heart for hard line Democrats. The debt Commission though is trying desperately to get Americans and their Representiaves to come to grips with a deficit that now annually hits more than a trillion dollars and no end in sight.

You voted foir a smaller leaner government and these recommendations don’t ensure that. But they do ensure a slower growth in government and promise a revamping of the tax code at the same time. More importantly it begins a plan to beginning cutting these deficits.

When asked if he supported extending the current tax rate for all, even the rich, Co-Chair Alan Simpson gives the typical snide comment we have heard from so many … I don’t need no stinking tax cut. Meaning of course, he has plenty of dough. Good for him. But he sees it as a way of cutting the deficit, while I see it as an excuse for just raising more dough re me for Congress.

It’s Eskine Bowles who takes the question seriously and I found his answer not just intriguing but also pretty damn accurate. Here’s the question: If you can successfully call deductions earmarks for the wealthy, won’t they be easier to eliminate and thus sell the plan?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhd3-J20B4c

UPDATE: Just for reference, here are some of the things that the Commission has called for:

The plan, according to the panel, would achieve nearly $4 trillion in deficit reduction through 2020, more than any effort in the nation’s history; reduce the deficit to 2.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2015; sharply reduce tax rates, abolish the Alternative Minimum Tax and cut backdoor spending in the tax code; cap revenue at 21 percent of GDP and get spending below 22 percent and eventually to 21 percent; ensure lasting Social Security solvency, prevent the projected 22 percent cuts to come in 2037, reduce elderly poverty and distribute the burden fairly; and stabilize debt by 2014, reducing it to 60 percent of GDP by 2023 and 40 percent by 2035.

Unfortunately it looks like these recommendations are DOA:

“I think this commission has already been a success because it has put front and center before the American people how big this problem really is,” Conrad said.

“Is there 14 votes? I don’t know, but I will vote for it,” Gregg said.

The key vote will come Friday but some analysts think it is a foregone conclusion that the report will fail to garner the 14 votes it needs.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that the Bowles-Simpson plan will not receive the required 14 votes to send the report to the president and Congress,” said John Irons, research and policy director of the Economic Policy Institute, a think-tank in Washington.

We could play politics and wait for the Republicans to jump in in January and slash even further, but I think that would be a mistake. It gives conservatives some real reform to hang their hat on and gets us off the dime … in the name of bipartisanship?

UPDATE 2: Here’s my take on this from a couple of weeks ago and it has not changed:

Pronouncing this DOA simply because it’s not perfect is a mistake.Personally I would like to have seen a tougher stance on spending, but when a commission calls for a hiring freeze and pay freeze of Federal workers, a modified flat tax, cut corporate tax rates and spending pegged to something for a change, you have my attention. Go ahead my little mobsters … start taking your shots. I’m a big boy, I can take it.  And please don’t hate me for standing with Juan on this.