When President Obama’s Debt Commission holds its first meeting Tuesday at 10 a.m. they will consider nothing too sacred to be examined for cuts — even the new health care reform law, the leaders said.
Former Clinton White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles (D) and former Sen. Alan Simpson (R) said on “Fox News Sunday” they can’t be limited if Obama really wants to make the tough choices to cut the deficit significantly.
Simpson said the commission will use “only” Congressional Budget Office figures and not use their own projections to estimate the future cost of Social Security and health care.
“We’re not going to say we’re going to grow our way out of this. Hell, we could have double growth for 30 years and never grow our way out of this. And hopefully we can all say, this is where we are,” Simpson said. “Then if we can do that — and that’s my naive objective — then we can start letting blood. Somebody said, well, is the new health care bill off the table? I said, nothing is off the table, absolutely nothing.”
Bowles agreed with Simpson and said he wants to go after spending first. “Once we have gotten real numbers out there, let’s see if we can persuade people to trust each other, come together, and really take some of these tough stands to bring down spending,” he said. “I think we have to go after everything. Everything has to be on the table, whether it’s revenue or spending.”
Simpson’s health care remark raised some eyebrows but the White House said the group is free to examine everything.
“The president has been clear from the beginning that he will not impose preconditions on the commission as it considers a set of comprehensive, bipartisan recommendations,” a White House aide told me this morning.
The commission is made up of 10 Democrats and 8 Republicans appointed by Congress. Obama will greet the full commission at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday and the meeting will formally come to order at 10. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will speak, along with Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, and former Congressional Budget Office directors Rudy Penner and Robert Reischauer.
Fox’s Chris Wallace pressed the chairmen if they felt bound by Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on people earning less than $200,000 per year and they both said they will consider any and all options. Simpson said it is “madness” that “old cats” in their 70s and 80s are not affected “in one whiff” by Social Security changes.
Bowles dismissed worries from Progressive Caucus Chairman Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) who said the commission would just “cut, cut, cut.” He said the group has to cut social programs.
“If we’re going to be serious about balancing the federal budget and righting this fiscal ship, then we have got to have everything on the table, and that includes the entitlement programs. We’ll never get to balance unless they’re on the table,” he said.
Simpson also balked at GOP arguments the Dec. 1 deadline is foolhardy. Minority Leader John Boehner said the commission should be required to report before the election. He said that would only lead to politicians getting the report and then picking it apart in reelection campaigns. “What is a cop-out about reporting on December 1 to the most important thing that effects every American for the next, you know, decade? What is the cop-out about that?”
Fourteen of the 18 commission members have to approve any changes, which also are subject to a vote in Congress.
