Deficit Commission Fails To Pass Plan

WASHINGTON -- President Obama's fiscal commission fell short of reaching consensus on a plan to shave $3.8 trillion from the federal deficit over the next nine years.

Fourteen votes were required for the plan to move forward for a vote in Congress, but the fiscally hawkish proposal garnered support from only 11 members of the 18-person panel.

Commission co-chairmen Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, and retired Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), drew national ire on Nov. 10 with their 'chairman's mark' proposal, which would have, among other things, raised the retirement age and resulted in higher taxes for millions of middle-class Americans.

But after weeks of fraught negotiations -- and having worked on the plan for 10 months -- the co-chairmen were unable to convince 14 of their colleagues to support the hawkish plan.

The plan was endorsed by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), as well as Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt (D-S.C.), and Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Judd Gregg (R-N.H).

Recognizing they did not have the critical consensus, the panel adjourned Friday without so much as taking a formal vote.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) objected to the plan over cuts to Social Security and Medicare, while Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) told reporters at a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor yesterday that he couldn't support the proposal because it reinforces President Obama's health care law.

"I think it makes health care dramatically worse," Ryan said. "I'm trying to be guarded in my comments, because I really respect what Erskine and Alan have done."

The co-chairman have been bracing for failure, saying that their greatest ambition is merely to start a conversation about how to rein in the national debt.

"Our goal has been really simple: To start an adult conversation about the dangers of the deficit we are running," Bowles told reporters earlier this week. "It is the exact same conversation that every family, every single business, every state and every municipality has been having for the last several years."

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) echoed that statement in the following statement on Friday.

"Though we may not see eye-to-eye on the specifics, Republicans and Democrats can surely agree that getting our long-term deficit under control will require major entitlement reform," said Cantor in a statement after the vote. "The more ideas that are brought to the table, the better, and we must not allow the urgency of the news cycle to force the demonization of ideas in their infancy. I believe that these type of efforts will set the stage for concrete action."

But many are pleased with the news, insisting there are more progressive ways to go about reducing the country's $13.7 trillion deficit.

"The advocates for the misguided recommendations from the 11 commissioners will tell you there is no alternative," said AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka in a statement Friday. "But this week, Our Fiscal Security, Representative Jan Schakowsky, and the Citizens' Commission On Jobs, Deficits And America's Economic Future all presented plausible plans to bring the budget deficit under control - without jeopardizing our recovery, without asking the middle class to pick up the tab, and without deep cuts in the programs our seniors rely on."

Comments

[MinervaMedica]

01:34 PM on 12/04/2010

Trying to fix the deficit when there's almost 10 percent unemployment is like trying to fix the roof when the house is burning down.

[ThatsTheTheWayItIs]

09:46 AM on 12/04/2010

Despite the "death panel" articles here, nothing will come of this. It was pure theater.
To those who disagreed with my earlier posts: told you so :-)
If we ignore HP fear-mongering articles, maybe they will go away.

[totaldisbelief]

09:42 AM on 12/04/2010

these two clowns are an abomination ...a little tar and feathers are in order

[Forever True]

09:39 AM on 12/04/2010

Stopping the wars and slashing the defense budget to being a defense budget (about 25% of its current budget) would bring a lot of money back and make a serious dent in the deficit. That money could also be used to restore manufacturing and create more jobs - which would generate more taxes and reduce the deficit.

Why is it that Republicans always pick the social programs to cut first instead of the military ones that do nothing to increase our security - in fact do just the opposite. Do they forget that they created this problem in the first place? Well we have longer memory.

[breakingpoint]

09:09 AM on 12/04/2010

take away Alan Simpson government tax payer pension money

[AbrahamMcLemore]

08:37 AM on 12/04/2010

ABC noted that lapsing the tax cuts for those over 250K would theoretically amount to $700 billion. Lapsing the cuts for UNDER 250K would amount to over $3 TRILLION.

Let's see, 700 billion or 3 trillion. hmmmm.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2010/12/03/nets-expound-cost-maintaining-tax-rates-stress-how-tax-break-wealthy-in

[just sayin]

09:12 AM on 12/04/2010

Excellent point. A lot of this is about class warfare and resentment. The hole we're in is so deep that the rich alone don't have enough money to get us out of it. It will require shared sacrifice across-the-board. A lot of the country isn't ready to hear that yet, though.

[BraineyRubble]

09:26 AM on 12/04/2010

The only shared sacrifice so far has been among those not in the top 2% of America.

You think the rest of us are just being lazy? That's not class warfare?

Wake up. Someday soon, it will be you, too.

[JackDermand]

08:31 AM on 12/04/2010

GOOD! THIS PLAN SUCKS. END THE WARS. TAX THE CORPORATIONS FIRST. LEAVE GRANDMA ALONE.

[AbrahamMcLemore]

08:30 AM on 12/04/2010

It looks like we all agree.

WE need to reduce the deficit.

YOU pay for it, not ME.

Politics, greed, class warfare, et al, .......perfect.
Lets go home for Christmas and let the next Congress worry about it.
"Taxi, taxi".

[robertwriter]

08:18 AM on 12/04/2010

I say the hell with it. Why? Listening to the very radical Yahoo Tech Ticker video site, they interviewed a retail investment manager, huge in the business (no ultra liberal, mind you) name of Davidowitz. He thinks Obama is a horror, and Bernanke, too, with all this deficit spending and debt -- but, he said, we are over three trillion dollars in debt, and where does that come from, he asked -- the Bush tax cuts, that's where -- that's essentially the whole bill.

If he is not correct, or far from the mark (which I don't think he is), I say these tax cuts have been entirely selfish anyway -- temporary gratification, pure and simple, having to have everything and living outside your means, run amock -- and look what it helped cause. If he is correct, it's reason I say all the more, bite the bullet, let them expire, taxes were never meant to be so low, except to put everyone in debt to the mercenary bankers and brokers and restore by stealth the 19th century Gilded Age to a select few ALL FOR GREED. PAY FOR WHAT YOU WANT -- SOCIAL SECURITY, MEDICARE, UNEMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION, PUBLIC SCHOOLS, ETC., ETC. OR PAY LATER, WITH THE DECLINE OF THE U.S., WITHOUT ADEQUATE INFRASTRUCTURE, RETIREMENT, ETC., ETC. ...and, I think we are starting to see that. Be reasonable, all this unreason is ruining the country.

IF YOU KEPT TAXES WHERE THEY WERE, OR SMALL INCREASES, we wouldn't be in half

[Dantee]

07:53 AM on 12/04/2010

Unbelievable! We are lost and it litterally makes no difference which way the recent election went nor which way the next. The 'powers that be' in Washington truly do not care and Americans will continue to elect career politicians.

[James Croteau]

07:03 AM on 12/04/2010

Some good news for a change. About the only "change" I have seen in the last two years. One would think Buba is still in the WH, really a commission to study the problem. You don't need a commission, just stop pouring our tax dollars into foreign adventurism. Problem solved and maybe save are security problem at the same time.

[KeyInfo]

05:31 AM on 12/04/2010

Government is a huge waste of time. I wonder what we paid these rich whiz kids. Good ideas but the thing about good ideas is that it's not a good idea until it's your idea or someone else's idea that is in a position to implement it.

[BigOrangeBoehner]

01:42 AM on 12/04/2010

America's problem is not "a milk cow with 310 million teats".

Our problem is this commission has a half-dozen azzh0les.

[James Croteau]

07:05 AM on 12/04/2010

eleven to be exact.

[StellaRay]

01:37 AM on 12/04/2010

I for one, am THRILLED the deficit commission failed to pass their plan. I salute the brave votes of those who said in effect "Hell, No!"

Yesterday I watched two republicans on Chris Mathews tell us, all a quiver, how we all needed to sacrifice and make the hard decisions in honor of our country. I saw it as a load of crap from two republicans who will by this weekend, vote to increase our deficit to give tax cuts to the wealthy. From two republicans who voted against extending unemployment benefits. (And might I note, Congress has never, till now, voted to cut off unemployment benefits when unemployment is above 7.5%. Google it.)

The way I see it, we're on our way down any way you slice it. So for me, I might as well slice it according to my beliefs. When I see the GOP willing to charge the rich with what they ask of the rest of us every day, when I see the congress willing to give up their own government paid for health care, when I see the GOP willing to question useless wars and a bloated defense budget, when I see the GOP willing to stop their legislative hand outs for big business, et-cetera and ad nauseam, then, and only then, I might be willing to talk about sacrifice.

[KeyInfo]

05:33 AM on 12/04/2010

Dead on!

[Helloise]

08:58 AM on 12/04/2010

Their idea of sacrifice is cutting a vacation short to come back and vote against the people's interest.

[AGammaRaye]

01:31 AM on 12/04/2010

The recommendations are amazingly slanted and so inclusive of the middle class as to be laughable. Unless and until these superbrains stop trying to sell castor oil so weakly disguised as olive oil, no result can be positive. I am weary of the old ugly fossils acting sincere as they advance proposals from the twilight zone in practicality designed solely to preserve and protect those who don't flinch at $4000 designer suits. The chasm between classes that we skate around has never been so vast and the 7 deadly sins never more in force.