Debt Reduction Task Force Offers Plan To Battle Deficit, Debt

By Rachel Whitt

Former Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alice Rivlin, co-chairs of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Debt Reduction Task Force, said Tuesday that “alarm bells should be ringing very loud in Washington” because of the current debt and deficit levels facing the country.

“I am worried more about America’s [fiscal] future now than I have been at any time during thirty-six years I served here in the Senate,” Domenici said. 

Domenici and Rivlin presented the Senate Budget Committee with the plan, “Restoring America’s Future,” the Task Force’s proposal introduced in 2010. It recommends freezing discretionary spending and defense spending, while restraining healthcare cuts and reforming the tax system. It also includes a one year “payroll tax holiday” to reduce and stabilize the debt.

The proposals set forth by the Task Force’s could potentially reduce the nation’s debt to 54 percent of GDP by 2040, considerably lower than the 233 percent the CBO projected at current spending levels.

“In the long run debt cannot be contained without slowing the growth of healthcare spending nationally, reforming the incentives built into medicare and medicaid, and putting Social Security on a firm fiscal foundation,” Rivlin said. 

The Bipartisan Policy Center is a non-profit organization created in 2007 to develop and promote solutions that draw support from both Republicans and Democrats.