Submitted by Illinoisnoki1 on Wed, 07/21/2010 - 17:44

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Obama's Debt Commission Doomed from Start
Co-Chairs are Biased and Incompetent
 

Posted at Tech Ticker, Jul 21, 2010 12:52pm EDT by Peter Gorenstein

As the federal deficit is expected to top $1.5 trillion for the current fiscal year and $1 trillion for the next several years, President Obama convened a commission to address the nation's budget problems. Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a progressive economic policy think-tank in Washington D.C., says that the commission is a waste of time and taxpayer money. Baker explains why the commission is problematic and, contrary to popular belief, the nation does not have a debt crisis in this interview with Tech Ticker.

Commission Doomed from the Start

Baker says that the committee, titled the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, was doomed from the start because of the strong views of the co-chairs - Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. Although the commission was designed to be bipartisan, Bowles, the Democratic co-chair, is not a typical Democrat. He is a director at Morgan Stanley, one of the banks benefiting from a Wall Street bailout.

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