Simpson, Bowles Urge Supercommittee to Go Big

A growing number of politicos in Washington are calling for the bipartisan supercommittee, charged with suggesting $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years, to expand its horizons beyond that figure by including entitlement and tax reform. You can add Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles — the co-chairmen of President Barack Obama’s fiscal commission – to that list, The Hill reports.

 

The supercommittee begins its work Tuesday, and in a press conference Monday, former Sen. Simpson, R-Wyo., and former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Bowles said a bigger program would help curb the government’s onerous debt burden and calm down financial markets and ratings agencies.

 

Their experience with the fiscal commission indicated that a broader proposal has a better chance for success, the two said. “We went from a very few people supporting what we were doing when we were trying to do just little small pieces, to having a lot of support — bipartisan support,” Bowles said.