Washblog

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., says that as of this morning she had not been shown the latest proposal of the White House deficit commission, even as she says it is being "shopped around" by its co-chairs in an effort to get the support of a simple majority of its 18 members--not the support of 14 members as was its original goal.

Schakowsky confirmed this shift in an interview with OurFuture.org after giving a private briefing to members of the Tuesday Group, a meeting of progressive organization leaders convened by the Campaign for America's Future.

The deficit commission--formally known as the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform--was scheduled to hold a public meeting today in advance of its planned release of its recommendations Wednesday, but the meeting was abruptly canceled. Instead, its co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, were tweaking the deficit reduction plan they made public earlier this month, which includes proposals to cut Social Security benefits, Medicare and Medicaid, and other key programs.

http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/11/30/simpson-and-bowles-defy-executive-order-want-to-delay-catfood -commission-vote

For most of the week, you could see the wheels coming off of the Catfood Commission. First we heard that "they may surprise us," but then there was this moving of the goalposts. Despite the fact that 14 of the 18 panel members had to agree to secure any recommendations which would go to Congress for a vote, now insiders were saying that a majority vote would show a signal of support.

But it's clear that Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson can't even get that. They canceled a planned public meeting today in favor of more private negotiation. And reports emerged that the panel was simply deeply divided on the issues.

A presidential commission on balancing the U.S. budget likely will fail Wednesday to secure enough support for its deficit-cutting plan to trigger a congressional vote on it, aides and analysts said.

With just a day left before a deadline to produce a plan, the commission's co-chairmen were still scrambling to nail down 14 votes among the commission's 18 members--a super-majority threshold set when the panel was created in February.

"We do not think that the commission's report will get 14 votes," said Brian Gardner, a Washington policy analyst at the investment firm of Keefe Bruyette & Woods.

Trust the lobbyists on this one.

You know that Simpson and Bowles are sweating, because they don't want to bring their proposal up for a vote. The latest is that they won't hold a vote tomorrow.

President Obama's deficit commission is likely to delay a vote, originally set for Wednesday, on a plan to rein in the soaring national debt, according to congressional sources.

As commission chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson huddle one-on-one with other members in hopes of assembling a respectable majority, sources said Tuesday that a vote later in the week is looking more likely.

<snip>

Plus this...

UPDATE: At a press conference, Simpson and Bowles say they will present their report tomorrow, with a vote on Friday. That means the report will not be official. It would have to get 14 votes by tomorrow for that to occur. Now it's just a bunch of greybeards in Washington with some cockamamie ideas. It doesn't even rise to the level of a panel white paper.