Department of "Huh"? (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? New York Times Edition)

What the Simpson-Bowles tax provisions do:

Eric Toder and Daniel Baneman: TPC Tax Topics | Distributional Estimates for Bowles-Simpson "Chairmen's Mark":

What Greg Mankiw writes:

Deficit Reduction Plan Is Realistic: Erskine B. Bowles and Alan K. Simpson, the chairmen of President Obama’s deficit reduction commission, have taken at hard look at these tax expenditures — and they don’t like what they see. In their draft proposal, released earlier this month, they proposed doing away with tax expenditures, which together cost the Treasury over $1 trillion a year.

Such a drastic step would allow Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson to move the budget toward fiscal sustainability, while simultaneously reducing all income tax rates. Under their plan, the top tax rate would fall to 23 percent from the 35 percent in today’s law (and the 39.6 percent currently advocated by Democratic leadership).

This approach has long been the basic recipe for tax reform. By broadening the tax base and lowering tax rates, we can increase government revenue and distort incentives less. That should command widespread applause across the ideological spectrum. Unfortunately, the reaction has been less enthusiastic.

Pundits on the left are suspicious of any plan that reduces marginal tax rates on the rich. But, as Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson point out, tax expenditures disproportionately benefit those at the top of the economic ladder. According to their figures, tax expenditures increase the after-tax income of those in the bottom quintile by about 6 percent. Those in the top 1 percent of the income distribution enjoy about twice that gain. Progressives who are concerned about the gap between rich and poor should be eager to scale back tax expenditures.

Isn't it worth saying that it looks as though Simpson-Bowles is an average $7000/year tax cut for the top 1% and an average $600/year tax increase for the working and middle classes? "Progressives who are concerned about the gap between rich and poor should be eager to scale back tax expenditures" just does not cut it, does it?