Obama has not talked about cutting the national debt and instead favors more modest changes that would slow down future spending. Moreover, he’s reluctant to take on entitlement spending, which economists say must be done before the national debt can be reduced. Unfortuantely, the headline states “Bipartisan Commission is Established to Reduce Debt.” But this is not what Obama has in mind….
President Obama has set up a bipartisan commission that will supposedly look for ways to rein in the nation’s exploding debt, but contrary to what the headline declares he has not talked about paying down or reducing debt.
The article itself touches on some of the objections Republican and Democratic leaders have to the commission and the potential political fallout. Alan Simpson, a former Republican Senator from Wyoming and Erskine Bowles, a North Carolina Democrat who served under President Bill Clinton, will co-chair the 18 member commission. Their recommendations will require the approval of 14 members.
In his remarks announcing the commission, Obama says he favors a “pay as we go” approach modeled after what done in 1990s.
“As important as this commission is, our fiscal challenge is too great to be solved with any one step alone, and we can’t we wait to act,” he said. “That’s why last week, I signed into law the PAYGO bill — says very simply that the United States of America should pay as we go and live within our means again — just like responsible families and businesses do. This law is what helped get deficits under control in the 1990s and produced surpluses by the end of the decade.”
From here, Obama transitions into promoting health care “reform” as a way to help drive down costs; a very debatable assertion. Critics who contend that bills currently before the House and Senate will further balloon the nation’s debt. The president alludes to “budget reductions” that would help generate billions of dollars in savings but is more explicit in his push for higher taxes. This component of the report deserves greater amplification because huge tax increases are the only alternative to serious entitlement reform.
“We’re ending loopholes and tax giveaways for oil and gas companies and for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. So, taken together, these and other steps would provide more than $1 trillion in deficit reduction over the coming decade. That’s more savings than any administration’s budget in the past 10 years.”
Republicans have expressed their suspicion that the commission will be used as a backdoor way of hiking taxes, instead of pursuing budgetary reforms that would actually reduce the debt. To the extent Obama does discuss the spending side of the equation his suggestion is quite meaningless.
“I’ve called for a three-year freeze on discretionary spending, starting next year. This freeze won’t affect Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security spending,” he said. “And it won’t affect national security spending, including veterans’ benefits. But all other discretionary spending will be subject to this freeze.”
Obama’s unwillingness to address entitlements should figure prominently into report, since any meaningful recommendations would have to address Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, according to the economists who are cited.
There’s another important revelation here that could make its way into the headline concerning Obama’s own party. Apparently some of his own White House advisors, along with liberal Democrats in Congress, have opposed the commission right from the beginning because they wish to protect the growth of entitlements.
“The president’s economic advisers were the main supporters of a commission; his political advisers initially were opposed,” the report says. “So were liberal Democrats in Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, largely out of protectiveness over entitlement programs.”
Headlines that more accurately reflect the prospects surrounding this commission could read as follows:
Liberal Democrats Favor Entitlement Growth over Debt Reduction
Obama Discusses Possible Tax Increase to Address National Debt
The most important sentence here is as follows:
“…Yet whether or not the commission succeeds in sending proposals to Congress after Dec. 1, its deliberations will force both parties to address whether to raise more revenues and make long-range reductions in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — the tough steps many economists say are essential to controlling a debt growing larger than the economy.”
This headline would also work.
Bipartisan Commission Must Tackle Entitlements to Avoid Higher Taxes
So far, neither party has talked about actual cuts and this should be reflected in the headline
Popularity: 2% [?]
