Business leaders urge deficit deal that includes taxes, cutting Medicare and Medicaid spending

A group of more than 80 CEOs are pressing Congress to cut the deficit through a combination of higher taxes and reduced federal entitlement costs.

The Associated Press/Los Angeles Times: CEOs Urge Congress To Reduce Federal Deficit
Chief executives from more than 80 major U.S. companies are pressing Congress to reduce the federal deficit by raising taxes and cutting spending. They warned in a statement issued Thursday that the uncertainty spawned by the deficit … is dampening businesses' hiring and investment and stifling the fragile economic recovery. The CEOs said the solution required a combination of higher taxes and reduced government spending, including cutting entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid (10/26).

The New York Times: Business Leaders Urge Deficit Deal Even With More Taxes
The partisan rift over taxes has blocked a deficit reduction deal for two years and has spilled into the 2012 campaigns. … The business leaders' goal contrasts with the campaign messages of both parties. While the executives seem to answer Mr. Obama's call for "economic patriotism" by their tentative embrace of higher personal taxes, in interviews many of them have rejected his "pay your fair share" talk as class warfare, and a good number oppose his re-election. But the business leaders' position also contradicts the stand of Mitt Romney and other Republicans, who say that all tax increases are "job killers," that the federal budget can be balanced with spending cuts alone and that any overhaul of the tax code should be "revenue neutral," neither raising nor lowering the government's total tax collection (Calmes, 10/25).

The Wall Street Journal: CEOs Call For Deficit Action
The CEOs, in a statement to be released on Thursday, say any fiscal plan "that can succeed both financially and politically" has to limit the growth of health-care spending, make Social Security solvent and "include comprehensive and pro-growth tax reform, which broadens the base, lowers rates, raises revenues and reduces the deficit" (Wessel, 10/25).