Bowles, Simpson To Run Debt Panel
FEBRUARY 17, 2010
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
online.wsj.com
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama is plowing ahead with a commission to tackle the federal debt despite resistance from Republican leaders.
Mr. Obama will name former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson as co-chairmen of the commission Thursday when he signs an executive order creating the panel, an administration official said.
The commission's job will be to help bring down the federal budget deficit to 3% of gross domestic product by 2015, compared with nearly 10% today, and to propose ways to hold down the surging costs of government programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The president will also ask the panel to look at the U.S. tax code and has not ruled out tax increases for the middle class should the commission deem them necessary.
Republican leaders and lawmakers said Tuesday they still had not been consulted on the panel's composition or mandate. The 18-member panel is to include eight Republicans, six named by GOP leaders in Congress and two by the White House.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) will decide whether he will name members after he has seen the details, said spokesman Don Stewart.
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R., Ohio) has been more critical. "Blue-ribbon commissions are fine and dandy, but we're still waiting for a response from the president on our proposal to start cutting spending right now," said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel, referring to a letter from House GOP leaders, who demanded upfront spending-cut commitments before they would take part.
The executive order, announced during Mr. Obama's State of the Union address, has been delayed as the White House tried to rally support for the panel. Officials say Mr. Obama will move forward for now with or without Republicans.
"We hope that when the president signs this executive order and announces his picks for this commission, that [GOP leaders] will demonstrate their seriousness in dealing with an issue of this magnitude by taking part," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday.
White House officials hope Mr. Simpson's participation will lend credibility to the effort, officially called the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Mr. Simpson served as a senator from Wyoming from 1979 to 1997 and Senate GOP whip, the second-highest post in leadership, from 1985 to 1995. He served on the Iraq Study Group during the Bush administration, a bipartisan panel named to study options for the Iraq war.
Mr. Bowles, currently president of the University of North Carolina, brokered the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 with Republicans in Congress when he was White House chief of staff. He ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2002 and 2004. |
