Supercommittee compromise offered by Erskine Bowles

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/67395.html

Erskine Bowles floated a new $2.6 trillion deficit-reduction outline Tuesday that is designed to split the differences between Democrats and Republicans on the supercommittee.

Meanwhile, Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee circulated a memo Tuesday on the potential consequences of a change to a “chained” consumer price index — despite a willingness among Democrats on the supercommittee to make just that policy change.

“[A] number of provisions of the tax code such as the income tax brackets, the standard deduction and personal exemption, and the earned income tax credit and the refundable child credit, are automatically adjusted for inflation. Changing the measure of inflation used by these programs to Chained CPI – which rises more slowly than the current measure – will reduce annual benefits in these programs over time and result in higher taxes, mainly for middle- and lower-income Americans,” the memo said.

And Democrats more broadly panned Bowles’ effort to find middle ground by reducing their desired revenue level and increasing spending cuts.