Obama debt commission: It's almost a wrap

Source: CNN Money

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- After working for eight months, the 18 members of President Obama's bipartisan deficit commission will finish their deliberations this week over how to reduce the nation's long-term debt.

Expectations are low that the panel, which holds its final public meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, will get the 14 votes required to make official recommendations to Congress.

But even if the panel doesn't produce a unified report, the group's efforts may not have been in vain.

That's because the commission's co-chairmen, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, have already gotten the national conversation started. Nearly three weeks ago, they unexpectedly released proposals that offer a framework for the debate over how to reduce the debt.




Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/28/news/economy/debt_commission_meetings/index.htm?eref=mrss_igoogle_business

s/wrap/farce

Let's have a defense cutting commission.

... at least, in the preliminary version that came out.

Oh, the signature pic?

It's a form of pushing back against chicken-little panics that seem to erupt often in American culture.

Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson gotthe 'national conversation' started.
More like put a stick in the nations eye.

.. and it's the Senior Citizens, working people and children who must have "Austerity"?

Republicans have been repeatedly accusing others of waging class warfare, while they and their rich benefactors waged it against us.

It's only class warfare if the poor fight back.

This is class rape.

Oh, they go through the motions sometimes but their heart is not in it. I have been voting for Democrats exclusively for 4 decades but I just can't be a yellow dog anymore.

Once he appointed Simpson and Bowles, there could be no other outcome than a recommendation of tax cuts for the rich and shared sacrifice for the rest of us.

So it is Obama who has made these suggestions.

These are issues we've needed to deal with for decades. No other Prez has.

The "Commission's" report is a starting point in a discussion we need to have. I also think the Commission's draft/proposal indicates how easily some of our financial problems can be solved with a reasonable tax increase for those at the upper end, increase in cap on SS tax, significant military budget cuts (not to personnel or health care), etc. And, let's not forget those scoundrels actually called for a Public Option in their report.

I think Obama deserves a lot of credit. Now, Dems can come back with a different proposal -- if they have the guts.

tax rate that they used to pay at, while the middle class pays at double the rate it used to pay at.

There are zero problems with Social Security. All estimates being used assume a substantially lower GDP growth rat for the next 75 years than we've historically had. If we continue to have anywhere near the same GDP growth that we've had, there are zero Social Security shortfalls.

Obama knows all of this, yet he chose to create a commission to cut taxes further for the wealthy, and attack Social Security.

to reduce the debt (because neither program adds to the debt) but - just because they want to gut / destroy these programs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund

This was intentionally done to prevent the amount owed from being quietly "vanished" somehow.

It is intellectually lazy & typical.

$436 million every friggin day 24/7/365. No room to cut there, huh?

So, yes, there was room to cut, and they recommended those cuts in their draft.

We'll have to wait to see what the final version looks like.

It's a Cat Food Commission.

That's alright, guys. There's absolutely no sense of urgency around here.

Indeed they have. They have established the frame and, not surprisingly, it reeks of right-wing thinking.

Mission accomplished.



:puke:

:sarcasm:


but seriously, unilateral class warfare is getting old.