Obama’s ‘Worst Mistake’ Was Rejecting Simpson-Bowles Deficit-Reduction Plan

Money News ^ | 5/2/2012 | Julie Crawshaw

[tobyhill]

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan says President Barack Obama blew it when he effectively rejected the Simpson-Bowles 2010 deficit-reduction proposal.

"The worst mistake the president made was not embracing that vehicle right away," Greenspan said at the Bloomberg Washington Summit, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The proposal, written by former Republican Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming and former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, would use a combination of spending cuts and tax increases to reduce the growth of the deficit by roughly $4 trillion over 10 years.

[tobyhill]

In before Obama's excuses.

Everytime Obama attacks Ryan's budget plan then we should shove it back in Obama's face that he rejected his own committee's recommendation.

[null and void]

Mistake? Only if you assume he doesn’t want to utterly destroy America.

[God luvs America]

setting up the Simpson/Bowles commission had nothing to do with reducing the deficit; it was a sham set up by obama as a last ditch effort to try and save his sorry ass before the 2010 mid-term elections....once obama got his butt handed to him in the mid-terms he had no use for the commission as it did not accomplish its mission...

[tobyhill]

It's not the only mistake Obama has made but last election McLame never fought back.

Romney/Ryan has almost 20 years worth of Obama lies, mistakes, contradiction and failures to go with.

[tobyhill]

Of course it didn't but it took away all possible attacks on Ryan because all Ryan has to say is “you rejected your own commission”.

Nothing wrong with piggy-backing off the 2010 success.

[arthurus]

Reducing the growth of the deficit is no progress at all. We have passed the point where that is even rational as a tactic to save the economy. The deficit needs to be ended in one fell swoop and beginnings made on paying down the debt. Nothing else is relevant to the situation at all. No sort of gradualism, whether rapid or slow ihas any economic meaning now even if only because successive Congresses cannot be bound by the acts of the present Congress and it is politically impossible for politicians to resist all the demands of voting blocs for more velvet.

[God luvs America]

i think your thought process is correct- but to think ayatollah obama had any intention of reducing the deficit is wrong...the commission was a sham...

[chuckee]

Obama held to an oxymoron perspective when it came to Simpson Bowls as he would only have embraced Simpson Bowls if it proposed a deficit cutting program that contained no cuts.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

No, his worst mistake occurred 51 years ago...

[Rusty0604]

just saw some guy on Fox saying that it was Ryan’s fault that Simpson-Bowles was not taken for vote because he voted against it. I vaguely remember Ryan disagreeing with some of it.

[Dutch Boy]

Obama didn’t reject the Simpson-Bowles plan. He simply just didn’t care what the plan was. It could have been anything. His real plan it to embrace the Cloward-Piven Plan at every opportunity.

[tobyhill]

I saw that too and he just let the cat out of the bag on how the Obama Campaign will try to defend them decommissioning Simpson-Bowles, by blaming someone else. Everyone disagreed with something in it but Obama picked the committee then rejected it.

[newzjunkey]

just saw some guy on Fox saying that it was Ryan’s fault that Simpson-Bowles was not taken for vote because he voted against it.

Ryan's vote was not decisive. They needed 14 they got 11. Voting for the report were Bowles, Coburn, Conrad, Crapo, Cote, Durbin, Fudge, Gregg, Rivlin, Simpson, and Spratt. Voting against were Baucus, Becerra, Camp, Hensarling, Ryan, Schakowsky and Stern.

I'd like to point out the Left's favorite Nobel economist Paul Krugman, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and union goon Trumpka all opposed Bowles-Simpson too.