The Need for Revenue

Corporate CEOs Embrace Tax Hike Plans Rejected By Paul Ryan
Posted: 03/ 7/2012 7:03 pm

WASHINGTON -- A powerful coalition of corporate executives on Wednesday praised a deficit reduction plan that has long been maligned by GOP leaders for raising taxes.

The Business Roundtable, a lobbying group of CEOs at companies from American Express to Xerox, released its own plan aimed at revitalizing the American economy. The report also commends the plan issued by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction panel and a more tax-hike-focused plan developed by former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alice Rivlin and former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.).

The Simpson-Bowles and Rivlin-Domenici plans "represent thoughtful, nonpartisan approaches that include significant policy solutions for America's leaders to consider and take action upon," the Business Roundtable report states.

When it was first released in December 2010, the Simpson-Bowles plan was greeted with disdain from progressive economists, who viewed the proposed $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases as too hard on the poor and too easy on the rich. As more conservative budget plans emerged, however -- including a proposal from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Budget Committee Chairman, to eliminate Medicare -- progressives have come to view the Simpson-Bowles proposal with more favor.

The Simpson-Bowles commission was created by President Barack Obama and stacked with both Republicans and Democrats. One of the panelists was Ryan himself, who voted against the final plan because it sought deficit reduction by building upon Obama's health care reform legislation and raising taxes.

"Relative to a current policy baseline, the proposal would increase revenues by $2 trillion over 10 years," Ryan wrote in December 2010. "Increasing the government's take from the economy hinders growth, and it is doubtful these revenues would be used for deficit reduction: there is no guarantee that reductions in Federal spending would be achieved."

But now the very CEOs whom Ryan has repeatedly lionized as job creators are praising Simpson-Bowles, as well as Rivlin-Domenici, which actually proposes more in tax increases than Simpson-Bowles. The Rivlin-Domenici

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