Erskine Bowles, co-chair of the Simpson-Bowles debt commission, said Wednesday that he believes there is a one-in-three chance that Democrats and Republicans reach a debt deal before the Dec. 31 deadline, according to ABC News. Bowles was joined at a briefing Wednesday morning by his commission co-chair, Alan Simpson.
“We have a real crisis, and I think it would be insane to reach the fiscal cliff, but I think that there’s only a one-third probability of Congress getting something done before Dec. 31,” Bowles said. “You all know what it means if we don’t, if we go over the cliff — I think you’ll see economic growth slowed by as much as 3 to 5 percent. That’s obviously enough to put us back into a recession.”
Bowles also put the probability of going over the cliff and then immediately reaching a deal at one-in-three: “I think it’s about one third that we’ll go over the cliff and people will come to their senses pretty quickly. But I think the real problem is if we go over the cliff and we don’t do anything immediately, and that’s also a one-third probability.”
