Cross-posted from www.fiscalaccountability.org

In the latest online version of the Heartland Institute's Budget & Tax News, CFA executive director Sandra Fabry writes about the dangerous flaws of the President's debt panel (which is modeled after the Conrad-Gregg commission proposal we have been arguing against for a long time), and points to a pro-taxpayer alternative in the form of a BRAC-style spending reform-only commission. Here's a snippet from the article:

Taxpayer advocates are proposing alternatives to President Barack Obama’s executive order establishing the so-called National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, a panel to recommend fast-tracked legislation making wholesale changes to government spending and the tax code.

Obama signed the order in February. The commission resembles one that had been proposed in the Senate but rejected.

Groups including the AFL-CIO and NAACP opposed the Senate plan because they feared welfare program cuts. On the other hand, taxpayer advocates pointed to the threat of higher taxes in the plan.

The taxpayer advocates are basing their concerns, which apply also to the President’s commission, on actual experience.

“In past budget deals, Congress has promised to cut spending later in exchange for tax increases now. Those spending cuts never actually happened,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC). “Instead, the extra revenue just let Congress defer dealing with the tough structural problems behind the crisis. Taking tax increases off the table is the only way we will ever have real reform.”

Unfortunately, that does not seem to be what our Congressional leaders and the President have in mind when they talk about "reform."

Click here to read the full article.