Simpson Bowles 2.0

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Tonight at the Baltimore Speaker Series, Erskine Bowlesboiled the country’s fiscal crisis down to five issues: healthcare, defense,social security, the tax code and compounding interest. The former chief ofstaff to Bill Clinton also expressed his disappointment with President Obamafor not embracing the recommendations of the National Commission on FiscalResponsibility and Reform that he co-chaired with former Repub Senator Alan Simpson.

Erksine was entertaining and a bit scary too. As he sees it, ifCongress and the president fail to proactively take bold measures to fix the nation’sdeficit on their own, a crisis of epic proportions will force them to, soonerrather than later. He said that when they first started working on thecommission he believed this was something we needed to do for ourgrandchildren. He now believes the problem is much more urgent. “We need to dothis, not for our grandchildren or even our children. We need to do this forus.”
To point out the absurdity of our current situation, henoted that we are bound by treaty to protect Taiwanfrom an attack by China butwe’d have to borrow money from Chinain order to do so.
Once again the speaker series did not disappoint.
The good news is that he and Alan have not given up. They have launched a grassroots efforts “The Can Kicks Back,”as well as an online petition “Fix the Debt” to encourage citizens to getinvolved. Erskine also told the audience that next Tuesday they will announce ajoint effort with Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin and their Debt Reduction Task Force to apply a full court press on Congress. He called it Simpson Bowles 2.0.