Debt commission members author separate plans, casting doubt on deal

At least two members of President Obama's fiscal commission will release their own versions of how the federal government can tackle debt and balance the budget, casting doubt on whether an agreement can be reached on a single plan within the next two weeks. 

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and Alice Rivlin, a former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton, are releasing their own plans that rival the report released last week by the chairmen of National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

Schakowsky's plan, set for release this morning, lowers the deficit by 2015 without major changes to entitlement programs, or by changing tax breaks that would lead to higher taxes for the middle class. 

The two chairmen, in contrast, backed reforms to Social Security and Medicare that would have lowered benefits. They also recommended sweeping changes to the tax code, including either scrapping of down-scaling the mortgage interest deduction used by many middle-class taxpayers. 

Schakowsky was critical of some of those changes. 

Fourteen of the 18 members of the debt commission must agree to the report for the commission to back recommendations. 

Rivlin's plan is set for release Wednesday, and she will be joined by former Senate Budget Chairman Pete Domenici as part of the final report of the Rivlin-Domenici Debt Reduction Task Force through the Bipartisan Policy Commission. 

The "chairmen's mark," approved and released last week by the panel's co-chairmen, former Clinton administration chief of staff Erskine Bowles and former Sen. Alan Simpson, (R-Wyo.), stirred up the left and the right, most of whom came out against the report. 

Bowles and Simpson, who have publicly defended their report during the past week, proposed cutting the deficit by nearly $4 trillion by 2020. They would cap discretionary spending, lower tax rates while expanding the tax base, raise the retirement age gradually from 65 to 67, reduce  the rate of increase of Social Security benefits, gradually raise the federal gas tax and cut $200 billion in domestic and defense spending. 

In an interview Monday, Bowles said, "What we're trying to do is to listen to other people's ideas to see how we can improve this package." 

House Ways and Means ranking member Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the incoming chairman of the House's tax-writing panel, said over the weekend that he doesn't like the idea of tax increases in the Bowles-Simpson plan and said the focus should be on reducing spending. 

Camp, along with GOP fiscal panel members Reps. Paul Ryan (Wis.) and Jeb Hensarling (Texas), released a tight-lipped statement after the report's release last week that didn't elaborate on their issues with the plan. 

Meanwhile, Americans for Tax Reform, a right-leaning group, said the plan "confirms what everyone has known — this commission is merely an excuse to raise net taxes on the American people." 

The group said the plan would mean $1 trillion in new tax increases. 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the plan "unacceptable" and Senate Majority Whip and panel member Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he wouldn't vote for the proposal. 

There were several positive responses to the report, including outgoing Senate Budget Committee ranking member Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) who called the proposal "a genuine product that deserves very serious attention."

"It is critical to our nation’s future that we take action that puts the country and our children’s future back on sound financial ground," Gregg said in a statement. "This will not be the final proposal, but it is a significant step down the path of establishing fiscal responsibility."

Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), said any plan to reduce the deficit and get spending under control across the $3 trillion federal budget will be difficult and likely controversial. 

"If some of us have to sacrifice a political career to get this country back on track, then so be it," he said last week.