Obama Fiscal Commission Already Treading Water

The Fiscal Commission (headed up by former Senator (R-WY) Alan Simpson and former Clinton White House staffer Erskine Bowles) is reporting a deep divide among their members and is calling into question their ability to unanimously agree to the measures needed to overcome the giant budget deficit we face as a country.

"The co-chairmen of President Obama's debt and deficit commission offered an ominous assessment of the nation's fiscal future here Sunday, calling current budgetary trends a cancer "that will destroy the country from within" unless checked by tough action in Washington.

"There are many who hope we fail," Simpson said at the closing session of the National Governors Association annual meeting. He called the 18-member commission "good people with deep, deep differences" who know the odds of success "are rather harrowing."

The commission leaders said that, at present, federal revenue is fully consumed by three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. "The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans -- the whole rest of the discretionary budget is being financed by China and other countries," Simpson said.

"We can't grow our way out of this," Bowles said. "We could have decades of double-digit growth and not grow our way out of this enormous debt problem. We can't tax our way out. . . . The reality is we've got to do exactly what you all do every day as governors. We've got to cut spending or increase revenues or do some combination of that."

Bowles is dancing around what should be the primary mission of the Commission, which should be recommending spending cuts and not tax increases.

The federal government budget has expanded massively since 2000. Bringing federal spending back in line with the amount of spending undertaken in the year 2000 would go a long way towards reigning in the current budget deficit.

The Commission appointees and members of Congress know that tax increases will stifle investment and savings, and would not improve the outlook for jobs.

The choice for the Fiscal Commission is simple. Once they stop thinking of ways to provide cover for Congressional Democrats by proposing tax increases, they can get down to the real business of ending the budget deficit through spending cuts.