After a series of events that a fiscal commission source called “strange,” the chairmen of the White House panel announced today that they’ll delay a vote on the final recommendations until Friday — two days after December 1, when President Obama required the commission to wrap up their work.
The 18 members of the commission were scheduled to meet in open session yesterday. But with members still deeply at odds, and without a final draft in hand, that meeting was closed to the public at the last minute, leaving staffers and commissioners scratching their heads.
At a press conference today, the co-chairs of the commission — Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles — first claimed they’d met the deadline Obama set for them, then shrugged off the fact that they’d missed that deadline, and finally sought to reduce the already low expectations that a significant number of commissioners would vote for the final product.
“We will meet the deadline of December 1,” trumpeted Simpson today. However, the chairmen of the commission will simply unveil their report on December 1. Obama’s executive order actually required the commission to vote on the final recommendations on December 1. That vote is now scheduled for December 3.
Reminded of that discrepancy, Bowles shrugged: “Of all the things I’m worried about, I’m not worried about that.”
Simpson said that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had pledged to work with the commissioners on the final report next year, regardless of whether they achieve the required 14 votes. “The majority leader of the Senate has agreed to take it up in the next session — the beginning session next year.”
“We’ll get somewhere between two and 14 votes,” Bowles said, suggesting that the only two guaranteed ‘yes’ votes belong to the chairmen themselves.
The report is scheduled to be unveiled tomorrow at 9:30. Everyone’s on leak-hunt until then.
