Business group calls for ‘serious’ budget plan

The group’s missive was signed by dozens of corporate chief executives and by leaders of both President Obama’s fiscal commission – Erskine Bowles, the former White House chief of staff under President Clinton, and former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) – and the Bipartisan Policy Center’s debt panel, former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Alice Rivlin, a White House budget director under Clinton. 

The statement comes after Republicans and Democrats have been pushing contrasting deficit visions. The House GOP’s fiscal 2012 budget, which assumes that all of the Bush tax cuts will be extended and makes major changes to Medicare and Medicaid, passed the chamber last week.

In his speech last Wednesday, the president called for a mix of spending cuts and new tax revenue to help eat into deficits, and reiterated that he wants to allow tax rates to rise at the highest income levels at the end of next year. 

In a release touting its statement, the committee also gave an endorsement of sorts to the group deficit talks to be led by Vice President Joe Biden and urged lawmakers to take part. 

The CED document was also signed by Glenn Hubbard, a Columbia University professor and former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, and Barbara Hackman Franklin, a Commerce secretary under George H.W. Bush. The business executives came from, among other places, the chemical, banking and healthcare fields.