Replies

While there are parts of it that we many will take issue with, I think Coburn has done two things right in this plan:

1. He’s spread the pain around to almost everyone. EITC limited to only five years? There’s going to be a whole lot of Democrats who will howl at that. Ending the deductibility of home equity loans? Oh, there’s going to be howling from bankers at that.

Ending deductions for second homes? Oh, I can hear more howling from here. Anything that makes bankers howl receives some positive feedback from me.

For that, I have to give him credit: He’s spreading the pain to as many interest groups as possible.

I’d leave the veteran benefits out of this tho. Vets earned those benefits. The typical grifter with both their trotters in the trough haven’t.

I agree with his notion of reducing troop levels in Europe and Asia, and I’d cut much more deeply on various wasteful projects. eg, I’d kill the F-35 project deader than a wedge.

2. His proposal is finally up to an amount that is getting closer (NB, I said “closer”) to what we need. The current GOP proposals aren’t anywhere near close enough to what we need, and we know what the DNC’s proposals are (more taxes).

The beefs I have:

1. How will this be kept in place for 10 years?
2. The cuts need to be front-loaded. We need at least $3T of cuts in the next two years, with another $2T ASASP after that. He doesn’t spell out how quickly these cuts will come online.

And both of those problems leave the plan open for defeat in successive years by politicking bootlickers in Congress.