http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Why Obama even set this Commission up in thge first place says something about his acceptance of right-wing irrational, obsessive thoughts.
Anti-deficit thinking may play a role in NORMAL circumstances. Bue we are in a fiscal EMERGENCY where this long-term strategy no longer applies.
WASHINGTON -- President Obama's fiscal commission fell short of reaching consensus on a plan to shave $3.8 trillion from the federal deficit over the next nine years.
The only good anti-deficit measure would have been to save money buy not setting up this panel in the first place. The mere fact of setting it up implies that the deficit is actually something we should seriously worry about.
It's a no-brainer, though, to give it serious thought for about a half-hour and then conclude it's a moot point in the dire circumstances we're in right now.
Commission co-chairmen Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, and retired Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), drew national ire on Nov. 10 with their 'chairman's mark' proposal, which would have, among other things, raised the retirement age and resulted in higher taxes for millions of middle-class Americans.
Simpson appears to be taking this from Econ 101 while ignoring all the reality of our need to INCREASE the money supply, not decrease it. Well, we could transfer it by stopping the wars but we assume Petraeus, the de facto Commander-in-Chief, and his fellow hawks have no interest in that.
But after weeks of fraught negotiations -- and having worked on the plan for 10 months -- the co-chairmen were unable to convince 14 of their colleagues to support the hawkish plan.
Thank God.
Recognizing they did not have the critical consensus, the panel adjourned Friday without so much as taking a formal vote.
"Maybe we can hide the loss by not taking the official tally. Then nobody can say we lost, right? We're just taking a hiatus. Right, fellows?"
The real solution is how to get more freshly printed new money out into the system, not cut off the money supply even more. The money supply - our blood supply - is what's keeping this country barely alive.