The president appointed Erskine Bowles, a former Clinton aide, and the former Republican Senator from Wyoming, Alan Simpson, to direct the commission which will give its report later this year.
I predict this is how that report will go: It will begin with a great deal of rhetoric devoted to cutting spending. Suggestions will be made to cut some entitlement spending, not amounting to anything much, but this is de rigeur. Further spending suggestions will nibble at the edges of national defense and around the edges of various other departments. The Department of Education, created under Jimmy Carter, is horribly expensive and wasteful and achieves virtually no results for our schools. But it will not be cut. If we cut the whole thing, a huge annual budget cut could be made - but it won't happen, short of a revolution. Lip service will also be paid to cutting fraud and waste in Medicare and Medicaid.
All of this blather will lead up to what the president really wants: The groundwork will be laid to propose new taxes, probably a VAT tax, on top of all the current taxes.
Senator Simpson is an honorable man. I'm sure he is well-intentioned, but he is also savvy to the ways of Washington and I think he probably knows what the agenda really is.
Our representative, Jeb Hensarling, is on the commission. He has been a strong voice for fiscal sanity, but I suspect he is somewhat skeptical about what the commission can actually achieve. Retention of the Bush tax cuts and some real cuts in spending are desirable, but its unlikely the current administration will go along with that and the complexion of the Congress would need to change greatly.
A prominent professor of economics, on FOX News, said he believed the VAT tax will be a killer of the middle class, both terms of income and jobs. But he agrees - it will be proposed by the debt commission, on top of current taxes.
If the administration can get this through with no structural reform of the tax system - well, can you say Hello Europe, Hello Greece? Experts are predicting that if we continue our current level of spending and entitlements, we are a mere five years away from being in the condition Greece is currently suffering.
The commission is scheduled to make its report following the November election, one more reason why this election will be a critical juncture for this nation and its future.
Copyright©2010SheilahPepper
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