Toward Common Ground

Bridging the Political Divide with Deficit Reduction Recommendations for the Super Committee

To break through the ideological divide that has dominated Washington this past year and offer a pathway to address the nation’s fiscal problems, the National Taxpayers Union and U.S. PIRG joined together to identify mutually acceptable deficit reduction measures.

Report

Illinois PIRG

To break through the ideological divide that has dominated Washington this past year and offer a pathway to address the nation’s fiscal problems, the National Taxpayers Union and U.S. PIRG joined together to identify mutually acceptable deficit reduction measures. This report documents our findings.

What follows is a general summary of recommendations that fall into four rough categories:

1. $214.9 billion in savings from ending wasteful subsidies,

2. $444.8 billion from addressing outdated or ineffective military programs,

3. $221.6 billion from improving program execution and government operations, and

4. $132.1 billion from reforms to entitlement programs.

Each specific recommendation includes an estimate of its savings over the next ten years, and a reference to the source from which the estimate was drawn.