White House, Congressional Democrats Reach Meaningless, 'Words Only' Deal on Debt & Deficit Commission

Meanwhile, tick-tock goes the debt clock -- merely $5 BILLION greater in debt, each and every wonderful day.  Isn't it reassuring to have such concerned leaders watching our national checkbook.  Gives me the warm and fuzzies every time I think about how prudently they shepherd us through fiscal calamaties, one after another, all of their own making.  I'm bursting with fiscal pride, you could say.

3 short but outstanding VIDEOS from David Walker are included for a look at some answers.

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(3 short VIDEOS from David Walker are BELOW)

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White House and congressional leaders reached a tentative deal aimed at establishing a bipartisan commission to tackle the soaring federal budget deficit, in what is likely to be a central element of President Barack Obama's fiscal 2011 budget, people familiar with the talks said.

Meeting Tuesday night at the White House, Vice President Joe Biden, White House budget director Peter Orszag and Democratic leaders agreed the commission would report back at the end of 2010 with a path to bring this year's projected $1.4 trillion deficit from about 10% of gross domestic product to 3% by 2015.

The commission would also submit recommendations on taxes and spending on entitlements, such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. House and Senate Democratic leaders promised the recommendations would be submitted to Congress for an up-or-down vote after the midterm elections this year, these people said.

The 18-member commission will include six people appointed by congressional Democrats, six appointed by congressional Republicans and six appointed by the president. Of the president's six, two will be Republicans and four will be Democrats.

Under the deal, the commission will be created by an executive order and laid out in the fiscal 2011 budget that Mr. Obama will submit to Congress Feb. 1.

Republican leaders weren't part of the talks, and the panel can work only if GOP leaders select members to serve on it.

Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) said GOP leaders wouldn't commit to cooperating with any commission until they see the details.

He questioned what a commitment by Democratic leaders to vote on the panel's recommendations would mean if Republicans take control of the House in November's elections. "We need to start controlling spending now," he said. "After a year of a deluge of spending by Washington Democrats, let's look to the stuff we can do on our own."

One key player on the issues, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.), did not immediately sign off on the pact. He and other key budget hawks such as Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.) and Sen. George Voinovich (R., Ohio) had opposed an executive branch commission, arguing that only one created by statute could force Congress to act once the recommendations were delivered.

Continue reading at the WSJ  >>

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Video:  The National Debt Truth

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Video:  David Walker on the coming fiscal tsunami

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Video:  David Walker -- U.S. Fiscal Immorality Will Lead To National Bankruptcy

Comments

[DailyBail]

Massachusetts Vote Will Shape Budget Restraint

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703837004575013273871721944.html?mod=loomia&loomia_si=t0:a16:g12:r5:c0.206299:b29902220

[DailyBail]

Congress vs. White House: Who Should Create The Debt Commission?

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/01/19/congress-vs-white-house-who-should-create-the-debt-commission/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Feconomics%2Ffeed+%28WSJ.com%3A+Real+Time+Economics+Blog%29&loomia_si=t0%3Aa16%3Ag12%3Ar1%3Ac0.288322%3Ab29902220

[James H]

Wow. This is starting to get interesting. Read this letter from Darrell Issa to Edolphus Towns about the NY Fed being in contempt of a subpoena for documents relating to AIG.
http://www.businessinsider.com/darrell-issa-the-new-york-feds-document-dump-is-incomplete-and-theyre-in-contempt-2010-1

ssa is after "documents related to the FRBNY'S knowledge of AIG's credit default swap counterparty exposure BEFORE AIG was bailed out in September 2008."

We don't know what Geithner, et al. knew about AIG before September, but we KNOW that they had been planning the bailout since January 2008 -- Neel Kashkari said so on Charlie Rose, and Philip Swagel's account corroborates this.

In other words, more likely than not, Geithner et al. knew about AIG's exposure (or Goldman's exposure to AIG) long before September.

[Paul E. Math]

Good stuff. This is why I keep coming back to DailyBail.

I like to see videos by/about Elizabeth Warren, Walker, Volcker, Schiff, some Ratigan rants. Ron Paul, Jim Rogers, Marc Faber. Stephen Roach would we awesome on video too although he's not very public these days.

It's very cathartic to hear someone who makes sense, as opposed to the conventional BS parrotted by the mainstream media and politicians.

Thanks, DB.

[RecoverylessRecovery]

"White House, Congressional Democrats Reach Meaningless, 'Words Only' Deal on Debt & Deficit Commission"

"Meaningless".

I just realized that word summarizes Obama's administration to date when it comes to putting this nation back on track either fiscally, legally or morally as per traditional American standards and expectations. In fact almost everything he's done seems to have simply decimated us even further. Fortunately for him -and his employers at Goldman Sachs of course- is the fact that 80% of "Americans" (*) are too busy keeping count of Tiger Woods sex-scapades to really care about what's going on anyway.

(*) aka "serfs"

[DailyBail]

thanks for the kind words Paul...

i've seen that link james...like everything else it's in the list to get published but i might not get to it except as a link...

the ny fed is scandalous in their disregard for transparency...