Prep work for Friday

President Obama has named a commission (National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform) to make recommendations about reducing the federal deficit. He actually created it by executive order (a term you need to know from vocab list). It is co-chaired by Alan Simpson, a former longtime Republican Senator from Wyoming, and Erskine Bowles, current president of U of North Carolina and former chief of staff under President Clinton. Their website is here. Notice the 18 member committee. President Obama selected the 2 co-chairs and the non-elected members. The remaining 12 were selected by House and Senate leaders (3 each by Speaker Pelosi, House Minority Leader Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Reid and Senate Minority Leader McConnell)

Excerpts from President Obama's Executive Order:

Sec. 4. Mission.
The Commission is charged with identifying policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run. Specifically, the Commission shall propose recommendations designed to balance the budget, excluding interest payments on the debt, by 2015. This result is projected to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio at an acceptable level once the economy recovers. The magnitude and timing of the policy measures necessary to achieve this goal are subject to considerable uncertainty and will depend on the evolution of the economy. In addition, the Commission shall propose recommendations that meaningfully improve the long-run fiscal outlook, including changes to address the growth of entitlement spending and the gap between the projected revenues and expenditures of the Federal Government.

Sec. 5. Reports.
(a) No later than December 1, 2010, the Commission shall vote on the approval of a final report containing a set of recommendations to achieve the mission set forth in section 4 of this order.(b) The issuance of a final report of the Commission shall require the approval of not less than 14 of the 18 members of the Commission.

WOW !!!! Lofty goals to get Republicans and Democrats to come together and agree to cut spending on programs vital to key stakeholders and to raise taxes on hardworking Americans. 14 out of 18 must agree to the reports contents. That is like 77.7777777777777777% of the committee's members.

On November 10th, 2010, the Commission released a draft of its recommendations. These are included in a 50 page document highlighting the commission's goals and objectives, its recommendations for spending cuts and for increasing revenue through tax reform.

This second document is the Commission's 58 point recommendation for reducing over $200 billion in spending from the US Budget by 2015. This is a more detailed explanation of the discretionary spending cuts mentioned above in the draft.

Have fun and looking forward to Friday's discussions,
Mr. Thompson