Any ideas who recommended Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles for the

[Peregrine Took]

Special Deficit Commission?

I just can't imagine why on earth anyone would push either one of them forward. Whoever did so has got to be one of the stupidest people in the "history of earth!"

I'm thinking Bill Clinton for Bowles but what moron recommended Simpson?

Worse ever - who accepted them?

[monmouth]

1. I'll take Timmeh Giethner for $1000 Aex....n/t

[blm]

2. Simpson is a VERY CLOSE GHWBush friend. Clinton and Poppy are closeasthieves.

They've been after this for decades. I'm surprised when anyone is still surprised about these 'commissions' put together by every administration of the last 3 decades. The players never really change.

[John Q. Citizen]

3. I'm sure it's the people who run the Northern half of the hemisphere who are responsible.

Gotta be.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. Doesn't this imply the president naively accepts whatever is fed to him?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say when these names reached the president's desk he didn't say, "Who?"

Leave us not forget Obama is pretty much the smartest president we've had in decades.

[Lasher]

5. Doesn't matter, it's Obama's Catfood Commission.

That's where the buck stops.

[jaxx]

6. I hate that phrase catfood commission.

It disparages the very people who will have Social Security and Medicare benefits. Why must the people be put down when all the hatred is supposedly sent to the administration? People ought to think before they open their mouths and can a phrase against the people.

[katandmoon]

8. Then call it "Obama's Commission to Screw Over People Dependent on Social Security and Medicare"

[jaxx]

10. No.

Call it what it is, a committee to look into the deficit. Nothing more. Unless they write it on stone tablets it's just a commission. Again, quit using the people as dirt.

[girl gone mad]

16. It isn't "a committee to look into the deficit"

If it were, then they would be looking at the financial crisis, the bank bailouts, defense spending, unemployment and the root causes of net private saving.

Instead, they're focusing on entitlements, which are not the cause of the deficits, and for which cuts will not reduce the deficits.

[Lasher]

21. How about, 'Our Lord & Savior Obama's Infinite Wisdom Committee'?

That has a nice ring to it. Now we can all go back to sleep until it's too late to do anything to save our social programs.

[Bluebear]

22. 'a committee to look into the deficit. Nothing more.' - you are easily bamboozled.

[joe black]

11. Nice try on the repuke projection trick.

Anybody with half of a brain knows that it's the commission not the people being named.

[girl gone mad]

15. You're not making any sense.

It isn't an insult to "the people", it's very clearly an insult to the idiotic commission.

[alarimer]

17. No, it's called that because that's what people will have to eat

if this commission gets its way.

[sabrina 1]

7. And who recommended Pete Peterson?

A well-known enemy of Social Security and former Nixon Commerce Secretary.

Big Lies and Social Security: Peter Peterson's Retirement is Secure

In this 2007 article by the well-respected Dean Baker, a look at the man now in a position to make 'recommendations' on Social Security, someone you would think no Democrat would ever allow anywhere close to a Commission where the issue of SS is likely to be discussed.

The granny bashers, intent on privatizing Social Security, routinely play fast and loose with the facts.

October 16, 2007 | He has said so himself many times. Peter Peterson first came to national prominence more than three decades ago as commerce secretary in the Nixon administration. However, he is far more widely known in his reincarnation as a crusader against Social Security and Medicare.

Fifteen years ago, Peter Peterson used some of the immense wealth he had accumulated as an investment banker to create and bankroll the Concord Coalition. The Concord Coalition was designed as a bipartisan organization promoting fiscal responsibility, with its primary targets being Social Security and Medicare. Peterson and his crew put out screeds, with titles like "Grey Dawn," that attacked these programs and warned that the growing wave of elderly would bankrupt the country.

Like most of the granny bashers, Peterson routinely played fast and loose with the facts.

For example, when you see the talking point that there is 'no Social Security Trust Fund', that is a Peterson lie.

Of course, there is a Social Security trust fund that holds more than $2 trillion in government bonds. Under the law, these bonds are to be repaid from general revenue, which comes almost entirely from the personal and corporate income tax. In other words, the bonds held by the Social Security trust fund, which are supposed to pay the Social Security benefits of retired workers, are effectively tax obligations for wealthy people like Mr. Peterson. If the bonds held by the Social Security trust fund are never repaid, Mr. Peterson and/or his heirs could save tens of millions of dollars from their future taxes. It shouldn't be surprising he is trying to convince the public that the trust fund doesn't really exist.

Emphasis mine.

A man with an ulterior motive for pretending there is no 'trust fund' should never have been even considered for this Commission. So, yes, it's a good question. Who is responsible for choosing him?

[branders seine]

9. the same people who own everyone else in our country.

the same ones who told Obama to "negotiate" away single payer while he was still just talking to himself and then drop his demand for a strong pulic option. The same ones who eliminated all traces of actual reform from banking "reform."

[tex-wyo-dem]

18. you nailed it, branders!!

And the same ones who are at this very moment watering down energy reform legislation.

[noise]

12. Why walk on eggshells?

The Obama apologists don't help anything. The Bush people loved to think it made sense to give Bush unitary executive power while absolving him of all accountability when things turned to shit because of his actions.

Enough excuses. Obama is the President and does not get a pass. If he didn't want the pressure then he shouldn't have run.

[Stinky The Clown]

13. Good questions. Bowles is an okay repub, Simpson is horrible.

Where's the Dem?






(yeah, yeah, I know. Its called sarcasm)

[inna]

14. Obama created the Deficit Commission by his Executive Order, and appointed

those two vile individuals mentioned in the OP as its Co-Chairs. Note: even *the Senate* voted against the Commission because it was too politically risky to touch the popular "entitlements"; Obama went out of his way to create the Commission.

:nuke:

[tex-wyo-dem]

19. Simpson eminates from the same generation...

Of Wyoming politicians that Chainee was birthed from...they both became highly influential among the bat-shit crazy right because they could spew any nutball ultra-far-right crap and get away with it. The majority of Wyoming voters will continue to vote in any shitbag who has (R) after their name.

[Canuckistanian]

20. I had a bad case of Erskine Bowles once

Right between my toes.

Very painful.

[xchrom]

23. recommend