TW: Are deficit commissions a great idea not really as they are merely a means to avoid the fundamental problem. But they are something and in this case another example of why fiscal policy is really just a political football punted around by the Republicans for their electoral benefit.
From Economist:
"The Democrats should embrace more Republican ideas. Republicans shouldn't then reject them
...the Republicans who complained to Barack Obama last week that they do, in fact, have some ideas were right. One idea Republicans had been pushing was a proposal for a bipartisan commission to recommend tough deficit-reduction measures. When Judd Gregg, the Republican senator from New Hampshire, and Kent Conrad, the Democratic senator from Nebraska, proposed the idea, most liberals dismissed it out of hand. The commission would have required the assent of 14 of its 18 members to make recommendations, and the recommendations would have required approval from supermajorities in both the House and Senate...
But then the Obama administration decided to embrace the idea. And, lo and behold...the Republicans promptly turned on their heels and repudiated it. Six of the bill's Republican co-sponsors voted against it. The justification was that mumble mumble tax increases mumble.
This was not a dignified spectacle. What it most strongly recalled was the old Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck "Duck season, wabbit season" routine, where, as soon as Bugs says "Wabbit season", Daffy switches to "Duck season" and—pow!—Elmer Fudd blows him away. The conclusion is pretty clear. James Fallows lays it out here. Fred Hiatt lays it out here. And Ezra Klein lays it out here."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/02/republicans_and_deficit_commission
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