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Deficit Cuts: Where? Your Vote?

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The President’s deficit commission proposes raising the retirement age and cutting tax breaks. How would you vote?

Debt Commission co-chairmen Erskine Bowles, left, and former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson speak to the media after a meeting of the commission, Dec. 1, 2010. (AP)
Debt Commission co-chairmen Erskine Bowles, left, and former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson speak to the media after a meeting of the commission, Dec. 1, 2010. (AP)

“Moment of Truth,” the President’s deficit commission plan is called. And deficit fever is certainly high these days in Washington and around the country.

The image of European debtors Ireland, Greece, and maybe more falling like dominoes is rattling. The commission’s language from the co-chairmen – “we cannot play games anymore” – is arresting.

So, is this the right time, the right plan, the right way to tackle the American deficit? Supporters say “yes.” Opponents say “absurd.”

We test the plan and ask how you would vote - yea or nay on this whack at the red ink.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:

Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect magazine and senior fellow at the think tank Demos, which along with other progressive groups released a quite different deficit reduction plan this week. He's author of “A Presidency in Peril: The Inside Story of Obama’s Promise, Wall Street’s Power, and The Struggle To Control Our Economic Future.”

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and contributing editor to RealClearMarkets. She's former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor (2003-2005) and chief of staff of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush.

Steven Pearlstein, Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist for the Washington Post.

This program aired on December 2, 2010.

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