Simpson and Bowles called the deal 'a small step forward.' Simpson, Bowles: Missed moment

Deficit hawk icons Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson on Wednesday lamented the fiscal cliff deal as a “missed opportunity” but praised it as a “small step forward” for deficit reduction.

“Washington missed this magic moment to do something big to reduce the deficit, reform our Tax Code and fix our entitlement programs,” Bowles and Simpson said in a statement released by Fix The Debt.


“We have all known for over a year that this fiscal cliff was coming. In fact, Washington politicians set it up to force themselves to seriously deal with our nation’s long-term fiscal problems. Yet even after taking the country to the brink of economic disaster, Washington still could not forge a common-sense bipartisan consensus on a plan that stabilizes the debt.”

The names of Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, and Simpson, a retired Wyoming GOP senator, have become shorthand for deficit reduction in some quarters. The duo co-chaired a presidential commission on deficit reduction, and the plan they presented has been praised as a model for deficit reduction, although not warmly embraced by the White House or Congress.

“The deal approved today is truly a missed opportunity to do something big to reduce our long-term fiscal problems, but it is a small step forward in our efforts to reduce the federal deficit,” Bowles and Simpson said in their statement. “It follows on the $1 trillion reduction in spending that was done in last year’s Budget Control Act. While both steps advance the efforts to put our fiscal house in order, neither one nor the combination of the two come close to solving our nation’s debt and deficit problems. Our leaders must now have the courage to reform our Tax Code and entitlement programs such that we stabilize our debt and put it on a downward path as a percent of the economy.”

The fiscal cliff plan adds $4 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years when compared with current law, which would have mandated massive tax hikes and spending cuts on Jan. 1. When compared with current policy — which assumes the extension of all the Bush-era tax rates — the plan subtracts just under a trillion from the 10-year deficit.