The Simpson Bowles Commission was implemented by President Obama via Executive Order when Congress voted down the creation of such a commission.
The goal of the commission, created through an executive order, is to come up with a fiscal reform plan, which could include tax increases, spending cuts and changes to entitlement programs, aimed at bringing down the deficit to a level equivalent to 3 percent of the country's economy. That's the level the White House said is sustainable over the long term.
The Simpson Bowles Commission spent months coming up with ways to reduce the deficit. The co-chairs released their draft proposal on November 10, 2010.
The White House published its 'The Moment of Truth' in December 2010 (pdf).
In reality, the commission was a failure because it could not agree on the recommendations. As McJoan has chronicled:
That'd be the deficit commission Simpson and Erskine Bowles co-chaired, aka the catfood commission. The commission that failed. It commission did not have recommendations, the chairs did. Because they could not come to agreement on a proposal, there was only a report from Simpson and Bowles, and no commission recommendations. They didn't get the required votes for an actual set of recommendations. They didn't meet their deadline for providing those recommendations. They simply did not succeed.
And now, there is exteme urgency in Congress right now to come up with a last minute plan by August 2nd to redue the deficit because doing so has been arbitrarity tied to the need to raise the Debt Ceiling.
Despite the failure of the Simpson Bowles Commission, the compromise proposal by the Gang of Six in the Senate, is based on the recommendations of the Simpson Bowles Commission
A BIPARTISAN PLAN TO REDUCE OUR NATION’S DEFICITS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This bipartisan, comprehensive, and balanced plan consistent with the recommendations of the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission that will:
• Slash our nation’s deficits by $3.7 trillion/$3.6 trillion over ten years under CBO’s March
2011 baseline, or $4.65 trillion/$4.5 trillion under the original fiscal commission baseline
(which used the President’s 2011 budget request as the starting point for discretionary
spending).
• Stabilize our publicly-held debt by 2014.
• Reduce our publicly-held debt to roughly 70% of our economy by 2021.
• Impose unprecedented budget enforcement.
A COMPREHENSIVE AND BALANCED PROPOSAL
Immediately implement aggressive deficit reduction down payment
• Cut deficits by $500 billion.
Fundamentally reform our tax code
• Reduce marginal income tax rates and abolish the $1.7 trillion Alternative Minimum Tax.
• Encourage greater economic growth.
(because everyone knows that the surest way to increase revenues fast is by reducing marginal income tax rates).
So let's recap:
Congress voted down the creation of a deficit reduction commission. President Obama implemented one through executive order. The commission could not agree on a vote, the vote failed, so the co-chairs made their report. That is now being called the 'Simpson Bowles Commission Report'. There is a frantic effort in Congress to raise the debt ceiling by reducing the deficit. The compromise proposal being worked on in Congress is based on this non-report report.
If anyone thinks that President Obama is hampered by being weak, or not having a majority in the House, or even the Senate, can't pass any legislation can only sign it, isn't a dictator, doesn't have a magic wand, you have not been paying attention.