My "Go Simple" plan for deficit reduction

Given the failure of the deficit supercommittee and a sense that Congress can't come to any agreement, I realized that I actually have a deficit reduction plan that can actually work and doesn't require anybody in Congress to even lift a finger since it all happens automatically.

 

My "Go Simple" approach to deficit reduction gets us most of the way to where we need to be, with just two components that don't require any agreement/deal to achieve:

1. The automatic $1.2 trillion in spending cuts.
2. The automatic expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2012 gives us $4.7 trillion (the CBO estimate of $3.9 trillion plus $800 billion of interest to borrow that $3.9 trillion.)

That's a total of $5.9 trillion over 10 years, more than even any of the so-called "Go Big" plans.

 

The beauty of this plan is that this is in fact what will happen if Congress decides to "do nothing."

 

Granted there is still more work to be done to solve the deficit long term, including Medicare and Social Security reform, but at least my plan is a better start.

-- Jack Krupansky