Exclusive: Bowles-Simpson icon begrudgingly admits his predictions were wrong

[DonViejo]

Alan Simpson also tells Salon Type 2 diabetes is "mostly self-induced" -- and insists debt disaster is still ahead

JOSH EIDELSON

In 2010, President Obama elevated ex-Sen. Alan Simpson to center stage in Washington’s budget battles, appointing the Wyoming Republican to co-chair (with Morgan Stanley board member and former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles) his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Simpson and Bowles’ budget proposal received the support of a majority of the commission, and a passel of pundit plaudits, but failed to secure the supermajority of the commission required to formally advance to Congress.

“It was damn good,” Simpson told Salon, this week, “because it effectively pissed off everyone in America …”

While the Bowles-Simpson plan was embraced by some congressional liberals including Nancy Pelosi (and Obama issued subsequent deficit proposals Ezra Klein called “in almost every category, to the right of Simpson-Bowles”), it was panned by a battery of progressive pundits and economists. Paul Krugman called the plan “tax cuts for the wealthy, tax increases for the middle class,” and charged that it was “basically saying that janitors should be forced to work longer because these days corporate lawyers live to a ripe old age.” Dean Baker slammed the pair for “ignorance of basic economics” and “xenophobic fear-mongering” about China, writing that “the current deficit is a support for the economy, rather than a drain on the economy,” and “the transfer of wealth to China depends entirely on our trade deficit, which is determined by the value of the dollar, not the budget deficit.”

In an interview this week, Salon asked Simpson – now co-chair of the Pete Peterson-backed Fix the Debt — about his past predictions of a supposedly imminent debt crisis, whether it’s fair for the retirement age to go up faster than many Americans’ life expectancy, and why his deficit commission plan would have capped federal revenue. The ex-senator told Salon that the current healthcare system “can’t possibly work,” citing, among other culprits, ”people with diabetes Type 2 — that’s mostly self-induced.” (According to the National Institutes of Health, “Family history and genes play a role in type 2 diabetes,” as well as weight, diet and activity level.) A condensed version of our conversation follows.

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http://www.salon.com/2014/03/21/exclusive_bowles_simpson_icon_begrudgingly_admits_his_predictions_were_wrong/

[riqster]

1. Eedjit. Operating outside of his competency and pretending to knowledge he doesn't possess

Of course he was wrong.