The catfood commission has released the final report [pdf], and will vote on it Friday. It hasn't substantially changed from the chairs' mark preemptively released by Simpson and Bowles a couple of weeks ago. It still has the disastrous ratio 2:1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases, includes a payroll tax holiday (reducing further Social Security's take), a regressive tax structure and arbitrary spending caps. AP sums it up:
A new version of the plan, obtained by The Associated Press, makes mostly minor changes to a draft that whipped up enormous controversy when unveiled earlier this month. Some domestic spending cuts are modestly higher than previously proposed, and health care savings from overhauling the medical malpractice system would reap less than proposed earlier this month.
Unlike their original proposal, Bowles and Simpson stop short of calling for caps on medical malpractice awards. Instead they recommend changes in how awards are made.
But other proposals remain the same. Among them are a gradual increase in the Social Security retirement age to 68 by 2050 and 69 by 2075, using a less generous cost-of-living adjustment for the programs and increasing the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes.
The plan also retains a 15-cents-per-gallon increase on gasoline, a three-year freeze on federal worker pay and cutting 200,000 workers from the federal payroll through attrition.
The CBO scored the plan, throwing that dash of cold water, again, on the idea that there are real healthcare cost savings to be found in medical malpractice reform. It's the myth that refuses to die, and yet the commission didn't do anything to address criticisms that there's nothing effective in the proposal for reducing the greatest long-term deficit driver for the nation--healthcare costs.
The question now is what happens next. Yesterday, Reid promised a vote, but with conditions, as David Dayen notes: "the commission must provide legislative language in hand, and they must get at least a majority vote on the commission, which would be 10 votes." The legislative language condition is not going to be met, unless they find volunteers do translate for free. They didn't create legislative language and officially cease to exist after today.
The other question is whether they'll reach 10 votes--a bare majority. Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg have agreed to it, as far as the rest go, I agree with dday that it's very much in question.
I think the House Republicans, led by Paul Ryan, are no votes. Jan Schakowsky, who came up with her own plan, is also a no. So we’re at 7-4.
What else do we know? Dick Durbin said he’s “studying” the proposal and didn’t have a commitment either way. Durbin did say that raising the retirement age was “acceptable.”
Joining Durbin on the fence is Andy Stern; Senators Max Baucus, Mike Crapo and Tom Coburn; and Democratic Reps. Xavier Becerra and John Spratt. To get 14 votes, they’d have to run the table. I’m not sure they get any of them, and could easily see 7 votes total for passage.
However, bits of this will survive as policy proposals and possibly in next year's budget. The White House's renewed commitment to bipartisanship seems destined to end up with Americans having to work longer for less secure retirements, and the wealthy continuing to do just fine.