When Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles formally released their controversial deficit reduction plan earlier this month, they patted each other on the back as if to say, “Well done — everyone can find something to hate.”
Mr. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, and Mr. Bowles, chief of staff for President Bill Clinton and departing president of the University of North Carolina, are co-chairmen of President Barack Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which was given the assignment of developing a plan to balance the federal budget, excluding interest costs, by 2015.
In developing the plan, the bipartisan duo held five meetings to hear testimony from fiscal experts, including
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Douglas Elmendorff, director of the Congressional Budget Office. During a June public forum, about 90 policy experts, advocacy groups and citizens suggested ideas for cutting the federal deficit.
The plan would trim about $4 trillion from the federal budget by 2020, through an increase in the
Social Security retirement age, a pay freeze for federal workers, a near-freeze on Pentagon spending and other belt-tightening measures. To be approved, 14 of the 18 commission members needed to endorse the plan, but only 11 agreed to it, derailing its wholesale adoption.
“But this is not a failure,” said Donald Marron, director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. “These recommendations advance the ball a great deal.”
One result is that Democrats and Republicans actually are talking about steps to reduce the deficit, including defense spending cuts, eliminating the mortgage interest deduction and others, Mr. Marron said.
“The commission has already gotten further than anyone expected,” he said.
Some members of the commission said they'd like the White House to put together a deficit reduction summit to explore more comprehensive ways of balancing the federal budget, and many made it clear that the issue of deficit reduction is not dead.
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, a Republican member of the commission, praised its co-chairmen even as he voted against their “provocative” plan because he disagrees with its recommendation to increase taxes and its “lack of structural reform to health care.”
“They have helped put an end to the era of deficit denial,” he said. “I am eager to build on this effort in my work at the House Budget Committee — drawing upon specific ideas put forward in the commission and drawing upon the inspired leadership of the co-chairmen.”
— Liz Skinner
