Obama Breathes New Life Into Kent Conrad’s Deficit Reduction Panel
Kent Conrad’s proposed congressional panel (that would actually make deficit reduction more difficult) isn’t going to get the votes it needs to pass the Senate, but Obama is proposing a panel appointed by himself that would help Congress pass unpopular tax hikes/spending cuts.
Showing once again that President Obama has no idea what “separation of powers” means.
The proposed commission would enable President Barack Obama to say he is taking steps to reduce record budget deficits over the long term during his State of the Union address next week without having to spell out how he would do so.
It also would breathe new life into a similar proposal that is expected to be rejected by the Senate as soon as this week.
Washington has a long track record of outsourcing thorny issues to commissions, then ignoring their findings. But this task force could have more clout.
I think there is a way to get an executive order which will provide for votes in either house, in both houses, under certain circumstances which are being discussed,” said House of Representatives Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Tuesday morning, before he met with Vice President Joe Biden and other Democrats at the White House.
Those at the meeting reached a tentative deal that would ensure that Congress would vote on any findings reached by the task force, a congressional aide said.
That would go a long way toward satisfying fiscal hawks like Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad who say Congress would not take any painful steps unless it is forced to vote on them.
So, Obama is going to order Congress to vote on tax hike/spending cut proposals? I don’t think that’s something the President can actually do.
Regardless, this is such a typically big government solution. Congress has all the power, and the President has a good deal of influence on the budgeting process as well. We don’t need another layer of bureaucracy on the taxing/spending legislative process. We need Congress to just stop spending.
Senator Kent Conrad, or any of the other members of Congress who claim to be opposed to the nation’s deficit problems, could propose legislation today to make big cuts in spending. Or even raising taxes. And the process to pass them into law would be a lot simpler than what Conrad originally proposed, or what the President now intends to order into existence.
What’s more, Obama himself could actually try vetoing some of this spending that comes through.
But they don’t want to do that. So instead they add the aforementioned layers of bureaucracy to the process to insulate themselves from having to make those decisions.
It’s a joke.
