Wall Street Journal: Perspectives on 2012

2011's Failures May Spur a Comprehensive Plan in 2012

—Deficit-Commission Leaders Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson

"We face the expiration of the 2001/2003 tax cuts, automatic cuts in defense and domestic spending on Jan. 1, 2013, and the likely need for another increase in the debt limit," say Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, who led President Barack Obama's deficit-reduction commission. "The need to deal with those issues—combined with the public reaction to the debt-limit fiasco and the sad failure of the supercommittee, and the growing support among members of Congress in both parties to craft a comprehensive fiscal plan along the lines of our proposal—could well lead to an agreement on a bold, smart, bipartisan plan to put our nation on an honest, sensible, sustainable fiscal course."

This text orginally appeared in the Wall Street Journal.