Even Howard Dean said the other day that taxes need to go up for all Americans if we are to ever reduce the debt/deficit. Spending also needs to be cut to balance the plan ( even the military ). Why not adopt Simpson/Bowles ?  Ok, you want it? Here it is from the Washington Post:  So here, with an assist from The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, are a few facts to keep in mind about the Simpson-Bowles plan. And while you're reading this list, remember: Simpson-Bowles is a centrist proposal.  1) Simpson-Bowles ends the the Bush tax cuts for income over $250,000. And note that they do that before they reform the tax code. The expiration of the tax cuts is built into their baseline. That way, their reform of the tax code starts from a revenue level that includes the revenue from those upper-income Bush tax cuts.  2) There are a lot of tax increases in Simpson-Bowles. $2.6 trillion over 10 years, to be exact. That's more than President Obama ever proposed. It's way more than the Republicans have ever proposed. It's $1.8 trillion more than in the "Bowles plan" that Boehner is proposing. Think about that: To follow the Simpson-Bowles recommendation on taxes, you'd have to take the $800 billion Boehner is proposing and then raise taxes by more than the $1.6 trillion Obama is asking for.  3) There are so many tax increases that the plan is nearly 1:1. According to CBPP's calculations, Simpson-Bowles includes $2.9 trillion in spending cuts and $2.6 trillion in tax increases. That's 1.1:1. If you add the $800 billion in projected interest savings to the spending side, then it's 1.4:1.  4) Simpson-Bowles taxes capital gains and dividends as normal income. The key difference between Simpson-Bowles-style tax reform and the tax reform plans we heard about through the election is that S-B eliminates the preferential rate on capital gains and dividend income. That amounts to a huge tax increase on the rich, and it's how S-B manages to lower rates while raising revenue and retaining progressivity.  5) Charities, homes, health care and states. Simpson-Bowles turns the deductions for charitable contribution and mortgage interest into 12 percent, non-refundable tax credits. It caps the tax exclusion for employer-provided health care and then phases it out entirely by 2038. It eliminates the exemption for state and local bonds.  6) Simpson-Bowles raises the gas tax by 15 cents. Just saying.  7) Congress has already passed 70 percent of the discretionary cuts. Under the Budget Control Act, discretionary spending will be $1.5 trillion lower from 2013 to 2022 than was projected in the Congressional Budget Office's 2010 baseliner. That means that 70 percent of S-B's cuts to discretionary spending are done.  8) Simpson-Bowles cuts security spending by $1.4 trillion, not including drawing down the wars. That's far deeper than what's in the law now, far deeper than anything the White House or the Republicans have proposed, and deeper, I believe, than the sequester cuts that so many think would devastate the military.  9) The Social Security changes. Simpson-Bowles makes three main changes to Social Security. It increases the taxable maximum on income to 90 percent of all income, which raises $238 billion over the next decade. It uses a different measure of inflation to slow cost-of-living adjustments. It raises the retirement age to 68 in 2050 and 69 in 2075.  10) Paul Ryan voted against Simpson-Bowles. And so, for the record, did Dave Camp and Jeb Hensarling, the other two House Republicans on the commission. Of the House Democrats, John Spratt voted for the proposal, and Xavier Becerra and Jan Schakowsky voted against. Among the senators, it was just the reverse: All three Republicans (Tom Coburn, Judd Gregg, and Mike Crapo) voted for it, as did two of the three Democrats (Dick Durbin and Kent Conrd). Max Baucus voted against it.  11) Simpson-Bowles went down in the House, 382-38. In March, Reps. Jim Cooper and Steve LaTourette brought a modified version of Simpson-Bowles to the floor. This incarnation of the proposal was actually quite a bit to the right of the original, including smaller tax increases and defense cuts. It failed, and failed big.  These 11 facts should shed light on a couple of Washington's enduring mysteries.  First, it should be fairly clear why the White House figured Simpson-Bowles was a nonstarter. They thought that if they endorsed it, Republicans would oppose it en masse, and hang every unpopular tax increase and spending cut around the White House's neck. In retrospect, I think the White House miscalculated here, but it's easy to see why they made the decision they did. The proposal the White House ultimately released included far fewer tax increases and security spending cuts than Simpson-Bowles.  Second, as popular as Simpson-Bowles is among the CEO community, and on Wall Street, most of those folks don't know what's in it. Wall Street doesn't tend to be hugely supportive of taxing capital gains as normal income, for instance.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, emerged Friday to say that "no progress" had been made on resolving the impending "fiscal cliff." Capitol Hill's top Republican said that talks with President Barack Obama toward resolving the automatic tax hikes and spending cuts sched …