I wouldn't get any heartburn over this, it is just some pointless political theater from the Nelsons and Bayhs of the Senate to "sound" like fiscal hawks, while they fund ever more wars and tax cuts for the rich.

It would be political suicide to gut Medicare and Social Security, and even "moderate" (corporate whores) Democrats can't be that stupid. It is just interesting to see them fight this fight now and suggest a "vote on, up or down--no filibusters" to kill FDR and LBJ legacy, but not for health care reform.

To a certain subset of idiot politicians, also known as "moderate" Dems, it's always 1994, so right-wingers have to pandered to, no matter the disastrous results to the country.

It's really sick, this Stockholm Syndrome these morons suffer from.

Yeah. They want to return us to the Glory Days of Hoover.

Obama the Biggest Spending Deficit Reducer of all. Let the triangulation begin!

Of course once we know who they put on the commission, we'll know exactly what will come out. Imagine what Paul Krugman, Robert Reich and Matt Yglesias would come up with compared to -- I don't know -- Greg Mankiw, Douglas Holtz-Eakin plus some other right-wing hacks.

These people are suicidally idiotic. Of course what they really want is to keep *total spending* low regardless of revenue so they can keep taxes low for all their rich friends and to hell with the poor and middle class.

I think it's smart politics, taking off the table the big whine from republicans/conservatives and calling their bluff. Just think if Obama spends as much legislative effort on deficit reduction as he did on Health Care. It would help him win over the center, big time.

The republicans will just start whining about something else. In particular, they'll criticize Obama for cutting Medicare/social security which is the only thing he can do to cut the deficit (other then raising taxes). Anything he can do cut the deficit is going to have real consequences, and no doubt the republicans will hammer on that.

They don't have any principles, they're hammering Obama on the deficit because if he actually tries to do anything about it, it's going to damage a bunch of other stuff that will be even easier to politically demagogue

IOW--"We aren't able to do the job that we were elected to do, and we're also too cowardly to do what we really want(destroy a popular and effective government program), so let's pawn it off to a special commission so we can pretend we did our job."

It's so pathetic that they can't make the relatively simple changes required. No, we need a "special commission" so we have an excuse to funnel more taxpayer dollars to Wall Street. They did such a bang up job last year, why not turn over our retirement to them? Besides, Wall Street firms contribute more to campaigns.
I have no doubt that's the reason congress wants to do this.

So what happens if (when) the committee becomes politically charged.

It will end up stacked with political ideologues of the same mindsent or their do-boys which are, if nothing else, worse (since they have more to prove as they were considered a do-boy their whole career) and the Senate ends up with a majority in which their friends are on the committee (or their do-boys) and the programs are gutted one lonely Christmas in the dark of night, only to find out all of the money I paid for SS and Medicare is now run by GS and I end up having lost 10-20% of my lifetime earnings.

Why are democrats fighting perceptional battles they cannot win by assimilating the Republican notions of success. They are again, and again letting the republicans define the terms of the debate. Democrats WILL BE perceived as big spenders regardless of what they do. A much more compelling argument would be to show that they are responsible, effective users of govn resources.

Let's not reflexively assume that deficit reduction won't help the economy. Granted, it is not Keynesian orthodoxy and Krugman does not believe it will help, but I think it is quite possible that it will be beneficial.

Economic conditions today are very different from either 1932 or 1980. We need to get away from the policies of "permanent stimulus" through deficit spending, tax cuts and cheap money; we need to see real savings fuel real productive investment that drives real growth. Intergenerational wealth transfers, military-industrial complex pork and assorted consumer spending accelerators are not the long-term fix that the US economy badly needs.

LOL... "This is our moment." and if you don't like it fuck you and the unicorn you rode in on... gotta love Chicago politicking!

This is the part where we see congress throw those persons who are least reponsible for the mess we have under the bus.

Well, as a general rule, if Dianne Feinstein thinks it's time to do something, it's best to cast a jaundiced eye on whatever that "something" is. If DiFi thinks that now is the time for Entitlement Reform (tm), it's probably a terrible time for it.

Fortunately, an "outside commission" is the usual Congressional tool for kicking the can down the road, so if we see one of those created, we can safely assume it's been pushed out a few years. It's like "blue-ribbon panel," or "trigger;" it's a way to make nothing happen while seeming to do something.

You guys do realize that both wars were added into the regular defense budget for 2010 right? No more "supplementals".

While the defense budget did go up 4%, thats reflective of the spending for Afganistan and Iraq. The major victories for Gates and Obama was killing the F-22, Future Combat Systems, which was $350 billion dollars and rising, and other of the worst offenders in terms of militarized Keynesianism.

2010 is just the start of defense drawdowns. You can take that for the bank. With the exception of war spending, the days of gold plated, "exquisite" weapons systems are done. With the passage of the McCain-Levin defense aquisitions reform bill, auditing and project management is going back in house. No more "lead system integrator" nonsense. It's already having a positive effect.

There will be savings once Iraq draws down over the next year and half, and eventually Afganistan will stabilize in terms of spending as it will be part of the actual budget. So in terms of percentage of the GDP, defense spending will shortly be on the way down.

I think what this article is talking about is dealing with the long term deficit, which is all entitlement spending and debt servicing. In terms of Medicare/medicade the HCR bill will help and with Social Security they'll probably just raise the withholding cap. Those need to be taken care of like it or not.

FYI, the Bush tax cuts end in 2011. I have a feeling revenue will rather unsurprisingly improve after those die. And no, Obama is not going to ask for them to be continued.