dr. alice rivlin has been calling upon congress and the president to come together and enact a comprehensive bipartisan debt reduction plan such as the one developed by the debt reduction task force that would reduce our federal debt to 60% of gdp by 2020. clearly, tax reform is the other key piece of the debt reduction puzzle in addition to entitlement reform, and we are pleased to be joined today by senate finance committee chairman baucus and this distinguished panel to discuss tax policy. here to introduce senator baucus is senator domenici, the former senate budget committee chairman and current senior fellow at the bipartisan policy center. thank you. [ applause ] >> i knew it would take a house member to recognize my prowess. bob packwood, i don't know whether he would applaud for pete domenici or not but there's no reason you shouldn't. i just want to say that for a long time now, we have been talking about our national debt. it's not getting any better. there are some cynics around who continue to think it's not very serious. we've had this problem before, don't worry. i'm not one o

dr. alice rivlin, cochair of the bipartisan policy center's tax reduction tax force, widely recognized as one of the most foremost experts on the issues we're talking about today. senator bob packwood, chairman of senate finance committee, he was one of the architects of the 1986 reform. congressman bill thomas, another chairman, chairman of the ways and means committee. widely seen as one of the smartest and toughest guys to ever walk the halls of congress, one of the main proponents of the tax cut bills of the last decade. and we've got robert greenstein, founder and president of the center on budget and policy priorities, an expert on a wide range of domestic policy issues including tax and social safety net programs. let's start, dr. rivlin, on mr. baucus' speech. lacking in some detail, some specifics that i know some of my colleagues in the press wanted. did it change or shift the debate at all? did it move the needle? >> i was very glad to hear him say several things that he said. one, clearly we're going to need more revenue as we address the long run deficit problem. and he stuck

dr. alice rivlin have been calling upon congress and the president to come together and enact a comprehensive bipartisan debt reduction plan such as the one developed by the reduction task force that would reduce the debt 50% of gdp by 2020. clearly tax reform is the of the key piece of the debt reduction puzzle in addition to entitlement reform and we're pleased to be joined today by the senate finance committee chairman bachus and this distinguished panel on tax policy. here to introduce senator baucus and senator domenici the former senate budget committee chairman and senior fellow at the bipartisan policy center. [applause] >> i knew it would take a house member to recognize. [applause] i don't know whether he would applaud for pete domenici or not. no reason he shouldn't. [laughter] i just want to say for a long time now we've been talking about our national debt. it's not getting any better. there are some cynics that continue to think that it's not very serious. we've had this problem before. don't worry. i'm not one of those. i don't think we had this problem before except once when