The what commission now?
President Obama’s “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” met for the second time today. They have just three more meetings before the panel releases its recommendations on December 1st. So, what’s the big news out of the meeting? It’s hard to know because the event seems to have gone completely uncovered in the press.
Perhaps internet culture has spoiled me, and maybe we’ll in fact see coverage in tomorrow’s morning papers, but right now, three hours after the meeting ended, I find no trace of coverage. Not from the AP, Reuters, or Bloomberg, and not from NYT, WaPo, or WSJ. The only thing I’ve found is a blog post from The Hill.
What does this tell us about the press? That they don’t think this meeting was that important. At the last meeting, Bernanke and Orszag testified, and it was widely covered. This time mere academics spoke. (Carmen Reinhardt pointed out that gross debt is approaching 90 percent of GDP, that this will drag down the economy, and that this will lead to further debt spiral. She counseled “austerity.”)
What does this tell us about the commission? I don’t want to overstate the point, but I think it says what everyone knows: that presidential commission go nowhere. Name the last presidential commission whose recommendations were heeded by Congress. As Judd Gregg pointed out before he joined the commission,
Numerous commissions have been created by executive order over the years, and their common thread is that none have produced any legislative results. How can they? No one has any real responsibility, or expectation of action, and so their recommendations collect dust on a shelf.
In which case, is the commission simply an election-year detente? Have we postponed seriously dealing with the problem until December so that both parties can avoid having to vote for the painful cuts and likely tax increases that are inevitable? How much worse will things get between now and then?
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