CHICAGO — Americans interested in getting the national debt crisis under control likely will have to endure cuts to popular programs like defense, Social Security — and the nationalized health insurance program known as Obamacare.
That's the conclusion of Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, authors of the widely disseminated report commissioned to devise ways to unwind the $16 trillion national debt and $1 trillion-plus government budget deficits.
Speaking in stark terms and folksy language, the duo laid out the dire reality of the situation to 4,000 investors at the Charles Schwab Impact conference Thursday.
"Who the hell is kidding who on what this is going to cost?" Simpson, the former Wyoming senator, said of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare." "We haven't found any constituency yet who wants to cut anything back anywhere."
A persistent lack of support from Washington to get a handle on the debt and deficit problem took focus of much of the pair's remarks.
For Simpson, the problem is especially apparent in health care, which they identified as one of five key areas where debt-reduction has to focus. Congress in 2010 passed President Barack Obama's national health care plan that will go into effect fully in 2014. (Read More: Health Law Has States Feeling Tense Over Deadline)
"This baby is on automatic pilot," he said. "It can't possibly succeed. There is no cost containment in this baby until down the road, and we know what will happen down the road — nothing."
In addition to health care, the other four targeted areas are defense, the tax code — Bowles called it "the most ineffective, inefficient, globally anti-competitive tax code that any man could dream of" — Social Security and compound interest on the debt.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
