Deficit panel to delay vote on report to FridayBy Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Tuesday, November 30, 2010
WASHINGTON — The leaders of a special bipartisan commission created to recommend ways to lower federal deficits and the national debt said Tuesday that they're delaying a vote on recommendations until Friday.
After working until the wee hours Monday and Tuesday, leaders of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform announced that they'd make their report public Wednesday as planned, but would put off a vote until Friday to permit more internal discussion.
"It's all about making tough, difficult choices," said Erskine Bowles, a commission co-chairman and former White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, in announcing the delay.
Bowles and his Republican counterpart, former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, said they don't expect major revisions to their draft proposal, which they issued in mid-November. It envisioned deficit reduction totaling $3.9 trillion over the next nine years, cutting the deficit in half by 2015, and by three quarters in 2020.
"The era of deficit denial in Washington is over," said Bowles, currently the head of the multi-campus University of North Carolina system.
unhappycamper comment: According to this article, we can watch the public forum at 9:30 a.m. EST on the White House web site.