Second, on discretionary budget cuts, this plan, like the chairmen's proposal, calls for freezing domestic discretionary spending and defense spending -- except it starts cutting immediately rather than allow a one-year grace period. This would yield 2015 savings of more than $200 billion, like the chairmen's plan. Many of the items nominated for the chopping block are also on the chairmen's list. The liberal proposal, by contrast, would seek similar cuts in defense but it would hardly touch domestic discretionary spending.



I feel uncomfortable evaluating the wisdom of domestic discretionary cuts. (Is it wiser to seek $500 million in cuts from the Educational Technology State Grants or the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership and Baldrige National Quality Program? I really cannot say.) So I'm going to chalk this up to a tie. But I will say that I prefer the Bowles-Simpson proposal to wait a year before enacting cuts, and also I prefer the Schakowsky plan to cut defense more than domestic. Three-way tie.

Third, on health care, the Rivlin-Domenici plan looks more similar to the chairmen's proposal than the liberal proposal. It caps Medicare to GDP-plus-1 percent, about 40% below current projections. It reforms medical malpractice laws, increases cost-sharing in Medicare, includes a permanent "doc fix," strengthens the Affordable Care Act, and includes plans to "incentivize providers to seek more efficient delivery systems." All of these ideas look similar to the chairmen's proposal. I'll take a longer look at all of the health care plans later this, but for now I like prefer the the more fleshed out Rivlin-Domenici approach to health care. Point: Rivlin-Domenici, barely.

Fourth, on taxes, today's new plan broadens the base and lowers the rate on personal income and corporate income (like Bowles-Simpson) but it also adds a key new variable: a tax on consumption specifically designed to reduce the debt. It simplifies the tax code into two rates -- 15 and 27 percent -- lowers the corporate income tax to 27 percent from 35, taxes investment income as ordinary income (raising effective rates on the rich), increases and simplifies the child tax credit and earned income tax credit (lowering effective rates on the low-income), and changes the mortgage interest deduction to a tax credit to make it less regressive. All told, it dramatically simplifies the tax code and makes it more progressive than both our current system and the chairmen's plan (according to initial Tax Policy Center estimates).* Point: Rivlin-Domenici.

Fifth, on Social Security, today's plan mimics the chairmen by (1) gradually raising the amount of wages subject to payroll tax to 90 percent of all wages, (2) slowing the growth of benefits by tweaking the cost-of-living adjustment, and (3) increasing the minimum benefit. Rather than very slowly raise the retirement age, this plan would very slowly shrinks the "replacement rates" used to calculate benefits each year for new beneficiaries to reflect an aging population receives more Social Security checks as we live longer.