Are My Missing Something?

This is really concerning. I'm wondering if I'm missing something?

If you really get into the guts of the Simpson-Bowles deficit plan, what you'll find are a lot of caps. Most of the early savings come from a cap on discretionary spending that "rolls discretionary spending back to FY2010 levels for FY2012, requires [a] 1% cut in discretionary budget authority every year from FY2013 though 2015" and then indexes discretionary spending growth to inflation from 2015 to 2020. They've got some "recommendations on how to apply the caps," which mostly apply to congressional procedure, and they offer ideas for where the discretionary cuts might come from, but those are just "illustrative." The plan is the cap, and however you hit the cap, it nets you $1.46 trillion by 2020.

This makes even less sense.

There's also a cap on taxes. That's a bit odd, as there's no real reason a commission dedicated to reducing the budget deficit should be limiting the revenues we can bring in to reduce that deficit, but it's there nonetheless. The cap is 21 percent of GDP, which is a bit above the 19 percent of GDP that's been the historical average, and the 18.5 percent of GDP that was the case in 2007. Again, they don't say how exactly we should hit that level, but they offer some options, and note that if we get there, it'll net us $751 billion by 2020.

And that's most of the plan. It's also the best way to think about the plan. Even if Congress did seriously consider this proposal, the details would never make it through the legislative process intact. The commission doesn't pretend otherwise, offering "illustrative" specifics rather than throwing its weight behind detailed plans. What they've largely outlined are the spending and revenue targets they think we'll need over the next few decades, and the areas we need to consider if we're to hit them. In their telling, that means more revenues and fewer tax expenditures (like the mortgage-interest deduction), less discretionary spending in both the defense and non-defense sectors, some reforms to Social Security and, over the long-term, substantially slower growth in the health-care sector.

So wait. Nothing's spelled out. Nothing's going to make it through as is. And wait up, it curbs Social Security, doesn't have a carbon tax, and has cuts to defense spending. Seems a little worrying.