News Media Covers Citizens' Commission Report

The New York Times
Liberal Groups to Propose Routes to Smaller Deficit

"On Tuesday, a separate coalition of liberal groups, economists and labor leaders — the Citizens’ Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America’s Economic Future — will release a similar outline."

The Washington Post
Commission comes up with new deficit plan, but delays vote until Friday

In recent days, those groups have rolled out a series of competing deficit-reduction plans that would preserve the social safety net by targeting the military for deeper cuts and raising taxes for the wealthy. The latest, unveiled Tuesday by the Citizens' Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America's Economic Future, argues that deficits should be reduced only after the economy has fully recovered and unemployment has dropped below 5.5 percent. Even then, the report says, "deficit reduction must be performed judiciously, without restricting government's ability to create jobs and without damaging needed social programs."

CBS News
Deficit Panel Chair: Debt is "Like a Cancer"

"Meanwhile, liberal groups have been busy fashioning alternative proposals. The "Citizens' Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America's Economic Future," for instance, released its own recommendations today, which include investments to spur job creation and long term economic recovery, establishing a "cap and trade" plan or carbon tax to raise revenue, and implementing a public option health plan. The Citizen's Commission is comprised of liberal economic policy experts, such as former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, Jeff Madrick and economists Dean Baker, Robert Pollin and Heidi Hartman, and former members of the House and Senate."

Politico
Barack Obama Faces Great Deficit Divide

-Robert Borosage
"On jobs, austerity, Social Security and Medicare, tax reform and where to cut spending, most Americans don’t support the proposals of the deficit commission co-chairs, which are echoed in other inside-the-beltway elite reports from the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Pew-Peterson Commission. In fact, popular support for a road to fiscal balance and national revival may be best reflected in a group of liberal responses – laid out by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a member of the deficit commission; the Campaign for America’s Future Citizen’s Commission Report, and a detailed plan from three progressive policy groups, Demos, the 21th Century Fund and the Economic Policy Institute."

The Huffington Post
Jobs First -- Any Other 'Deficit Plan' Sells America Short

-Richard (RJ) Eskow
"The Citizens' Commission On Jobs, Deficits And America's Economic Future is releasing its report today, and its recommendations will be very different from those of the self-described "bipartisan" plans now dominating Washington conversations. (They are bipartisan in a way, come to think of it, since polls show that many of their ideas are disliked by both Democrats and Republicans.)"

"...The Citizens' Commission was organized and supported by the Campaign for America's Future and the Institute for America's Future*. As the name suggests, the Commission addresses the subject of deficits in its rightful context: the economy as a whole. And as the name also suggests, its proposals closely mirror the public's preferred deficit solutions. That's not, however, because the distinguished members of this panel were looking for popular answers. It's because the popular answers also happen to be the right answers."

USA Today
Rival Deficit Plan Raises Taxes, Angers All

"Groups representing seniors and working-class Americans, such as the Campaign for America's Future, criticized the latest deficit-reduction plan in the nation's capital — this one by the independent Bipartisan Policy Center — because it would reduce future Social Security benefits and turn Medicare into a voucher program."

"..."We're going at this backwards," said Roger Hickey, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future, which favors more government spending to stimulate the economy and create jobs. He said the plan hurts working-class Americans more than those in upper-income brackets because the former depend more on Social Security and Medicare."

The Hill
Union-Backed Deficit Proposal Ramps up Stimulus Spending

"The Citizens’ Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America’s Economic Future calls for $1 trillion in stimulus spending over the next two years and continued investment of $450 billion per year thereafter. It proposes no spending cuts until the unemployment rate drops to 5.5 percent, down from October’s 9.6 percent."

The Huffington Post
Deficit Commission Slashes Taxes For Wealthy, Corporations, While Raising Retirement Age And Cutting Spending

-Ryan Grim & Dan Froomkin
"And a Citizens' Commission On Jobs, Deficits And America's Economic Future, organized by the Campaign for America's Future, released its proposal on Tuesday."

CBS News
Deficit Plan Proves Offensive to All, Leaders Admit, but Plan Gets Some Support

"The "Citizens' Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America's Economic Future," one of a few liberal groups to release a counter-proposal, called the deficit commission's report "fundamentally misguided."

Open Left
A Budget for America's Future

"Earlier this morning I did a diary about the new report, "Investing in America's Economy: A Budget Blueprint for Economic Recovery and Fiscal Responsibility," from Our Fiscal Security, a joint venture of Demos, The Century Foundation and the Economic Policy Institute. In it, I noted, "I'll have more later today about a second progressive proposal, which in part builds on this report." Well, here it is."

"This second proposal is the "Report And Recommendations Of The Citizens' Commission On Jobs, Deficits And America's Economic Future", organized out of the Institute for America's Future."

SEIU
SEIU Joins Citizens' Commission to Create Jobs, Reduce Deficit

"SEIU joined Campaign for America's Future, economists, progressive organizations and other unions today to announce the Citizens' Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America's Economic Future and release a set of proposals to reduce our deficit, create good jobs and protect essential programs like Social Security and Medicare."

The Washington Post
Andy Stern Takes on America's Second Deficit

"Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union, is a member of the Simpson-Bowles Commission. He's not the only participant to bring out his own plan -- both Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Alice Rivlin have already released separate proposals -- but his plan is more clearly distinguished from the others. This is, in part, because where they reduce one deficit, he reduces two."

The Chicago Sun-Times
Cutting Poverty Should be Nation's Top Priority

"Today, the Citizens Commission on Jobs, Deficits and the American Economy, sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future, publishes an antidote to the current Washington focus on austerity. The Citizen’s Commission argues that we need to put America back to work first, and then redress our deficits not by cutting Social Security or Medicare, but by progressive taxation, cuts in wasteful defense spending and corporate subsidies."

FDL
Letting the Tax Cuts Expire as a Deficit Cut Roadblock

"So that’s the context of the Citizen’s Commission report put out by the Campaign for America’s Future today. It calls for the novel idea of actually growing the economy to deal with the deficit, since it’s the only thing that’s ever worked on a large scale. And it calls to target what actually drives deficits; namely, runaway health care and military spending, and unaffordable tax cuts for the rich. You can balance the budget while investing in the country and growing the economy, that’s essentially the message, and it’s a good one."

Daily Kos
Citizens Commission on Economy: Grow the National Debt to Fiscal Stability

"Yesterday, a coalition of progressive organizations--Demos, Economic Policy Institute, and The Century Foundation--released a fiscal blueprint for growing our way to economic stability. It is reinforced today by another report from some of the nation's leading progressive economists, the Citizens' Commission On Jobs, Deficits And America's Economic Future, including Jeff Madrick, a member of the commission and Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, with contributions from Roger Hickey, Robert Borosage and Richard Eskow of the Institute for America’s Future, Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect and Demos, and Robert Pollin of the Political Economy Research Institute, with additional work by other members of the commission. "

AlterNet
America's Shocking Unemployment Rate Is the Big Economic Crisis, Not the Deficit

"Members of the Citizens' Commission on Jobs, Deficits and America's Economic Future formally released their report earlier today with a declaration that the commission created by the White House to come up with a deficit-reduction plan is poised to make the economy worse."