Monday, July 12, 2010

Debt Commission Leaders Prime Us For Bad News

 Erskine & Simpson
Obama's Debt Commission Leaders

So we needed these two guys to tell us that the debt is out of control and we're headed to ruin.  And the best part is that Obama's Debt Commission is running out of money. According to The Heritage Foundation:

In an ode to irony, The Fiscal Times reports that President Obama’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (more popularly known as the “debt commission”) is running out of money:
President Obama’s bipartisan fiscal commission is operating on a shoestring budget and some panel members and lawmakers worry that it may run short of money.

We're paying the Debt Commission for doing the job the incompetent Congress is supposed to do.  And the Debt Commission will come back, tell us the debt is spiraling out of control and make recommendations to solve the problem.  All this basically so that Obama and Congress can blame the Debt Commission when we hear the "bad news" that taxes are going up, up, up.


Here's a novel idea...CUT THE SPENDING

The Debt Commission leaders are already priming us for the bad news that will come from them in December, conveniently after the November 2010 elections, of course.  I especially love this line from the article:


Bowles also said Congress had to be ready to accept the commission's findings.
"What we do is not so hard to figure out; it's the political consequences of doing it that makes it really tough," he said.

No kidding.

Debt commission leaders paint gloomy picture

BOSTON (AP) - The heads of President Barack Obama's national debt commission painted a gloomy picture Sunday as the United States struggles to get its spending under control. Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles told a meeting of the National Governors Association that everything needs to be considered—including curtailing popular tax breaks, such as the home mortgage deduction, and instituting a financial trigger mechanism for gaining Medicare coverage.

The nation's total federal debt next year is expected to exceed $14 trillion—about $47,000 for every U.S. resident.
"This debt is like a cancer," Bowles said in a sober presentation nonetheless lightened by humorous asides between him and Simpson. "It is truly going to destroy the country from within."
Simpson said the entirety of the nation's current discretionary spending is consumed by the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs.
"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," said Simpson. China alone currently holds $920 billion in U.S. IOUs.
Bowles said if the U.S. makes no changes it will be spending $2 trillion by 2020 just for interest on the national debt.
"Just think about that: All that money, going somewhere else, to create jobs and opportunity somewhere else," he said.
Simpson, the former Republican senator from Wyoming, and Bowles, the former White House chief of staff under Democratic President Bill Clinton, head an 18-member commission. It's charged with coming up with a plan by Dec. 1 to reduce the government's annual deficits to 3 percent of the national economy by 2015.
Bowles led successful 1997 talks with Republicans on a balanced budget bill that produced government surpluses the last three years Clinton was in office and the first year of Republican George W. Bush's presidency. Simpson, as the Senate's GOP whip in 1990, helped round up votes for a budget bill in which President George H.W. Bush broke his "read my lips" pledge not to raise taxes.
Despite their backgrounds, both Simpson and Bowles said they were not 100 percent confident of success this time around.
Simpson labeled the commission members "good people of deep, deep difference, knowing the possibility of the odds of success are rather harrowing to say the least."
Bowles also said Congress had to be ready to accept the commission's findings.
"What we do is not so hard to figure out; it's the political consequences of doing it that makes it really tough," he said.
Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe was one of those leaders who sat in rapt attention during the presentation, one of the first in public by the commission leaders.
"I don't know that I ever heard a gloomier picture painted that created more hope for me," said Beebe, commending its frankness.

Via: Breitbart.com

4 comments:

  1. It can be fixed.

    But it will hurt.

    barack hussein obama wants to keep the cash flowing to his liberal cronies, to pander to illegal aliens, etc. He has no motivation to do anything.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hear one of their proposals is to do away with the mortgage interest deduction. I also hear that spending less is not an option. Do we really live in the same world as these ass-wipes?

    ReplyDelete
  3. LL:
    Rush is, at this very moment, talking about this article. His theory is that the Dems may be hoping the GOP takes control of the House. Reason: After the lame ducks pass Obama's agenda (cap & tax, card check, etc) and the Debt Commission gives their report, every bad thing that will happen as a result will happen after January 2011 when the GOP takes over. The GOP will get the blame (and the press will comply). Only if the electorate is educated, will they realize that the Dems have been running the show all these years and it's really their economy. He thinks we're being set up.
    Sounds plausible to me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Odie:
    That is one of the items mentioned in the article and we all know that spending less will never be an option with Obama...of course, unless it's on the defense budget.
    Read my comment to LL. What I left out is that Rush said that after the GOP takes over, Obama will continue to try to fix things, and when the GOP stops him from making it worse, Obama and the press will blame them for blocking everything.
    We are living in the Twilight Zone.

    ReplyDelete

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