“Erskine Bowles” on The Daily Caller

Prior to President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union speech, I wrote a column in this space urging him to seize the initiative on the major moral issue of our time — the $14 trillion-plus debt and the trillions of dollars of deficits that will continue for the foreseeable future. (more)

That headline alone is a shocker, since it defies the conventional wisdom (CW) and narrative created by the media and the Internet. (more)

President Obama’s FY-2012 budget shows a failure of leadership by a man who claimed that he would change the way Washington works. Red ink continues to be spilled at record rates with no end in sight and yet President Obama continues to ignore the 800-pound gorilla in the room — our climbing $14 trillion national debt. (more)

Fifteen years ago, on January 23, 1996, President Clinton delivered his State of the Union speech. A little more than a year before, President Clinton and congressional Democrats had experienced a shellacking in the 1994 congressional elections, when the Republicans took over control of the House of Representatives for the first time in 42 years and also won control of the U.S. Senate. (more)

For all the talk of the tax cut deal’s impact on the deficit, if Republicans can get spending cuts to pay for the $60 billion or so that it would cost to extend unemployment insurance for a year then the agreement will be acceptable to a majority of even the most conservative among them. (more)

President Obama created the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction panel to devise a plan to deal with America’s disastrous fiscal situation. This is a difficult, largely thankless, and absolutely necessary task.  We face two options: Either we effect a major course correction before a fiscal crisis besets the nation or we endure such a crisis. Obviously, before is better. (more)

President Obama’s debt commission Friday received support from 11 of 18 members, falling short of the 14 votes needed for what would have been more of a symbolic passage than anything else. (more)

The penultimate meeting of President Obama’s debt commission Wednesday was a data-heavy affair, with members and reporters poring over the 58-page final report brimming with facts and figures. (more)

Summoning the most urgent and stern rhetoric possible, President Obama’s debt commission co-chairmen released their final report Wednesday morning upon a capital culture waiting eagerly to tear it to shreds. (more)

President Obama’s deficit commission must appear on the national stage Wednesday and announce something: it may be a proposal approved by a majority of its 18 members, but most money is on an irresolvable split that makes a final product impossible. (more)

Job-based health care benefits could wind up on the chopping block if President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans get serious about cutting the deficit. (more)

“Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised and whatever else they can get away with.” (more)

A co-chairman of President Obama’s debt commission said Friday that a fast-approaching congressional vote on whether to raise the government’s debt limit will cause a political “bloodbath” that will force lawmakers to take their recommendations seriously, regardless of whether their panel produces a consensus product. (more)

A leading Democrat on President Obama’s deficit commission said that the proposal released by the panel’s co-chairs last week would receive support from no one on the 18-member body, and strongly signaled that the Dec. 1 deadline will pass without any agreement on a set of recommendations. (more)

This year our national debt climbed to more than 60 percent of our annual gross domestic product. If our federal government keeps on spending the way it does now, this will climb to 90 percent by the end of the decade and more than 100 percent soon after. (more)

Among the $200 billion in spending cuts recommended — when the co-chairs of President Obama’s deficit commission dropped their draft proposal out of nowhere into an unsuspecting post-election political scene on Wednesday — are some very politically charged items. (more)

Co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles of President Obama’s Fiscal Responsibility Commission surprised the political world Wednesday when they publicly released their own (as opposed to a full commission) five-part plan for repairing the federal government’s dire fiscal outlook. The five components of the plan include proposed reductions in discretionary spending, fundamental tax reform, targeted savings in health care entitlements, savings in other mandatory spending, and comprehensive Social Security reform. (more)

A plan to cut the federal deficit and reduce the debt that was released Wednesday by the co-chairs of President Obama’s debt commission was blasted by the left, with labor unions leading the way in decrying its cuts, and received only a noncommittal response from the White House. (more)

A presidential commission’s leaders proposed a $3.8 trillion deficit-cutting plan that would cut Social Security and Medicare, reduce income-tax rates and eliminate tax breaks including the mortgage-interest deduction. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Leaders of President Barack Obama’s bipartisan deficit commission are proposing to reduce the annual cost-of-living increases in Social Security. It’s part of a sweeping proposal to wrestle $1 trillion-plus budget deficits under control. (more)