Obama should embrace Simpson Bowles

My column in the Sky Hi News today
As expected the presidential election is coming down to the 5-6 percent who either are not focused on the campaign or who are just plain conflicted.

On many of the major issues and ideology, most voter opinions are already set in concrete. The problem facing both Mitt Romney and President Obama is how to keep the concrete firm and still snag the elusive middle.

The president has some work to do, but his options are not as big as some gambles he has already taken, and embracing Simpson-Bowles debt reduction proposals by name is one good bet.

Obama has a record of taking risks and winning. Reflecting on what has happened this last week regarding the president's endorsement of marriage equality, events moved so quickly he went with his gut, but the gut may be a winner when the dust settles. Like Obama's decision on how best to get bin Laden that gambled his re-election chances, or taking the risk to bail out the auto industry, his gut coupled with good analysis and faith in our special forces and changes forced in business practices turned out to be   gambles that paid off.

Marriage equality is a gamble with only 50 percent in agreement. Evangelicals, Southerners, the LGBT community, and social libertarians had already dug themselves in. Others who were not with him on this issue, like members of the black and Hispanic communities and young voters, are committed to him for other reasons. The gamble is that    Rust Belt blue collar workers who were grateful for the auto bailouts and women would likely put their own economic and health access agendas ahead of marriage equality issues in deciding whom to support.

To appeal to moderates, Obama needs to endorse Simpson-Bowles debt reduction plan by name, because just about everyone in both political parties and in between do feel there is a need to tackle debt. Opinion polls are already showing support, with voters approving Simpson-Bowles. It is not that big of a gamble.

By embracing Simpson-Bowles, the president can put a brand name to his policies. He can then pit Simpson Bowles against the GOP-Ryan plans and make case that Simpson-Bowles is far more fair and balanced when it comes to   who or what gets hit with the cuts and who pays more or fewer taxes.

Obama has already embraced many of the details in Simpson-Bowles. However, there is still left the thousand pound gorilla: “entitlements” and support of Simpson-Bowles implies support of their proposals.

I hate the term “entitlements” because it makes me feel guilty that I am a beneficiary of two of them, Medicare and Social Security., From time to time ill relatives have also been able to live out their lives humanely, first on Medicare and Social security, and later on Medicaid after assets ran out. We had put in our money and time and earned them or desperately needed them. Many on the conservative side  have been or will be beneficiaries as well. That is why  Obama and many on the right pussy foot around the issue, delay decisions for lame ducks to tackle, or exempt from changes current beneficiaries.

Potentially to their downfall, Rep. Paul Ryan, and the House Republicans have proposed a solution that Romney called “marvelous.” However, what policies they propose, especially regarding Medicare, are potentially politically toxic. Obama can bite the bullet and endorse the Simpson-Bowles proposal to raise retirement age to 70. He should contrast that with the Ryan plan to privatize, voucherize, and leave future beneficiaries stuck with higher co-pays when they do get their “entitlements.” After all, fellow retirees, we are so much healthier than our predecessors. The next generations will be able to work a few more years, too. It is a haircut we can more comfortably ask them to take.

For more, go to www.mufticforum.com and www.mufticforumespanol.blogspot.com.

Obama's plan to reduce the deficit better and less painfu

 My column in the Sky Hi Daily News today:
Forget Congress. Forget the President's 2013 budget. Forget the deficit: Except for extending the payroll tax holiday, nothing much is going to happen in Washington until after the November elections. Congress will just be too busy posturing and pandering.

That is not all bad because what the Obama administration has been doing to improve the economy seems to be working. The better time to make changes will be in a year or two when our economic recovery is more secure and could survive any extreme or inappropriate attempt to fix the debt problem. About 40 percent of the deficit was caused by the 2008 crash and could be cured by recovery. Social Security and Medicare will not go broke this year or in the near future.

To avoid nasty surprises, we should demand that contenders for president be more specific about their post-November 2012 plans for the remaining deficit. The question is: Which party has the better proposal to reduce the deficit that also causes the least pain and collateral damage?

There is already a plan on the table that does make sense. The Simpson Bowles Deficit Reduction Commission report was serious, comprehensive, and fact-based.

A case can be made that the Obama administration is more likely to enact Simpson Bowles because it has already enacted or proposed a large number of Simpson Bowles recommendations, while the GOP has proposed and voted for some unpopular alternatives and has outright opposed others.

One Simpson Bowles proposal was to cut defense spending, and Obama has implemented much and plans more. The GOP, especially Mitt Romney, favors spending even more on defense.

Simpson Bowles recommended continuing Obamacare to reduce the deficit. Yes, their conclusion was that there are net cost savings (and not the fictional additional trillion dollars of costs the GOP wrongly pins on health care reform).

The GOP has no proposal to replace Obamacare other than to shove health care solutions and expense to the states to do as they will. Leaving health care to the free market, as the GOP often proposes, is a farce. There is no free market: Insurers are exempt from anti-trust action, free to collude to set prices and coverage.

Unlike Obamacare, the GOP offers no requirement to cover pre-existing conditions or to insure the 30 million uninsured, or to provide for everyone no co-pays for annual physicals, mammograms, and now maybe not even requiring inclusion of contraceptives. Those without insurance would still go insurance-naked, visiting the ER only when they got so sick they required expensive treatment, and passing their unpaid bills onto the rest of us in the form of increasingly unaffordable higher premiums. GOP plans contain no checks on health care costs to us or to the Medicare and Medicaid system, either.

Simpson Bowles concluded that tax fairness was needed and the deficit could not be reduced without raising taxes and letting Bush tax cuts expire, with which Obama agreed. The GOP could not stomach any of that and they proposed to increase the unfairness with more tax breaks for the rich, relying solely on cuts to social programs. Obama has also proposed a millionaires' tax, further getting the fairness part right.

Simpson Bowles recommended cutting $2.5 of government expenses for every dollar of tax increases. Obama has supported similar ratios, depending upon what is included in the calculations, but he has consistently supported more dollar-for-dollar cuts than tax increases.

Those who have the most at stake are the future seniors. Both political parties have fumbled or became MIA on solutions to keep Medicare and Social Security viable. A sensible recommendation made by Simpson Bowles was gradually to raise the retirement age to 70. That is far less painful than GOP plans: eliminating the “security” in Social Security by gambling retirement on Wall Street with no safety net to cover failed investments, and/or requiring $6,000 in annual Medicare co-pays.