Obama's Fiscal Commission Starts Their Journey

President Obama's Fiscal Commission, chaired by former Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY) and former Clinton Administration official Erskine Bowles recently met for the first time, and made the predictable statement that "every option is on the table".

"The panel is examining ways to cut costs and boost revenues to produce a maximum deficit of $550 billion by 2015, an amount equal to about 3 percent of the total U.S. economy. That would require deficit savings of at least $250 billion, the Associated Press reported.

The commission will hold its first meeting on Tuesday, and President Obama said there are no restrictions on its recommendations: “Everything has to be on the table,” Obama said on Tuesday. That means tax hikes and entitlement cuts are possible."

If the goal of the commission is reduce the deficit to "only" $550 billion in five years, that's a very modest goal indeed. The ability of the U.S. government to successfully finance its deficits for years to come should not be assumed away, and consequently a much more aggressive approach by the Fiscal Commission (say, to eliminate all deficits within 3 years) would be appropriate.

What seems to be in the cards at this point though is a recommendation from the Commission to "fix" the deficit by cutting spending and raising taxes.

"Solutions – as spelled out by (Ben) Bernanke, White House budget director Peter Orzsag and other experts – entail some combination of changes to Medicare, Social Security and other entitlement programs, cuts in other spending and higher tax revenue."

Regarding the approach to be taken by the Fiscal Commission, it's clear that the government is living well beyond its means, and the solution to correcting that is to slash spending and not to heap yet more taxes on the backs of our already-burdened taxpayers.

America was founded a couple hundred years ago as the land of the free, and we cannot be free as a people if more and more of the fruits of our labor is stolen in order to fund economically and socially worthless government programs.