Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to lead panel on reducing U.S. budget deficits
President Obama will name Alan K. Simpson, a former Senate Republican leader, and Erskine B. Bowles, a top official in the Clinton White House, to chair a special commission to solve the nation's budget problems, administration officials said Tuesday.
Obama plans to make the announcement Thursday, when he intends to sign an executive order creating the 18-member panel, which will be tasked with drafting a plan to significantly reduce soaring budget deficits by 2015.
The annual gap between spending and tax collections is expected to approach $1.6 trillion this year. At more than 10 percent of the overall economy, it would be the largest budget gap since the end of World War II. While deficits are projected to decline as the economy recovers from recession, they are projected to soar again by the end of this decade as retiring baby boomers tap into the entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare.
"How did we get to a point in America where you get to a certain age in life, regardless of net worth or income, and you're 'entitled'? The word itself is killing us," Simpson said by telephone from his home in Cody, Wyo. "Our job is to move this issue forward."
Democrats said Simpson and Bowles are uniquely equipped to blaze a path out of the fiscal wilderness -- and to forge bipartisan consensus on a plan likely to require painful tax increases as well as program cuts.
Bowles, 64, served as chief of staff in the Clinton White House and helped broker the last significant bipartisan budget agreement in 1997, crafting a package of tax hikes, entitlement cuts and budget controls that helped generate the first balanced budgets in nearly 30 years. Last week, Bowles announced plans to retire as president of the University of North Carolina system.
Simpson, 78, represented Wyoming in the U.S. Senate from 1979 to 1997, rising to the post of Republican whip and gaining a reputation as an independent thinker willing to break from partisan orthodoxy. Since his retirement, he has taught at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and served on the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, a congressional panel created to recommend changes to U.S. policy in Iraq.
Though long out of office, Simpson is still widely respected among the GOP rank and file, and Democrats hope his involvement will spur Republican leaders to cooperate in the politically delicate task of reordering the nation's fiscal priorities.
"Alan Simpson is hardly a pushover in anybody's world," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), one of the commission's leading advocates.
On Tuesday, however, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) again declined to say whether they would name members of the panel. "Blue-ribbon commissions are fine and dandy, but we're still waiting for a response from the president on our proposal to start cutting spending right now," said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.
Simpson, who informed Boehner and McConnell of his decision to lead the panel, said he has little patience for such talk, especially since Republicans did nothing to cut spending during the George W. Bush administration.
"If they don't participate, they run a real hazard in these times," he said. "The [Senate] election in Massachusetts was not so much a glorious Republican victory as a bunch of people who were damned mad saying, 'Why don't you get a handle on this stuff?' You can't get a handle on it if you don't participate."
Obama plans to make the announcement Thursday, when he intends to sign an executive order creating the 18-member panel, which will be tasked with drafting a plan to significantly reduce soaring budget deficits by 2015.
The annual gap between spending and tax collections is expected to approach $1.6 trillion this year. At more than 10 percent of the overall economy, it would be the largest budget gap since the end of World War II. While deficits are projected to decline as the economy recovers from recession, they are projected to soar again by the end of this decade as retiring baby boomers tap into the entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare.
"How did we get to a point in America where you get to a certain age in life, regardless of net worth or income, and you're 'entitled'? The word itself is killing us," Simpson said by telephone from his home in Cody, Wyo. "Our job is to move this issue forward."
Democrats said Simpson and Bowles are uniquely equipped to blaze a path out of the fiscal wilderness -- and to forge bipartisan consensus on a plan likely to require painful tax increases as well as program cuts.
Bowles, 64, served as chief of staff in the Clinton White House and helped broker the last significant bipartisan budget agreement in 1997, crafting a package of tax hikes, entitlement cuts and budget controls that helped generate the first balanced budgets in nearly 30 years. Last week, Bowles announced plans to retire as president of the University of North Carolina system.
Simpson, 78, represented Wyoming in the U.S. Senate from 1979 to 1997, rising to the post of Republican whip and gaining a reputation as an independent thinker willing to break from partisan orthodoxy. Since his retirement, he has taught at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and served on the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, a congressional panel created to recommend changes to U.S. policy in Iraq.
Though long out of office, Simpson is still widely respected among the GOP rank and file, and Democrats hope his involvement will spur Republican leaders to cooperate in the politically delicate task of reordering the nation's fiscal priorities.
"Alan Simpson is hardly a pushover in anybody's world," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), one of the commission's leading advocates.
On Tuesday, however, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) again declined to say whether they would name members of the panel. "Blue-ribbon commissions are fine and dandy, but we're still waiting for a response from the president on our proposal to start cutting spending right now," said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.
Simpson, who informed Boehner and McConnell of his decision to lead the panel, said he has little patience for such talk, especially since Republicans did nothing to cut spending during the George W. Bush administration.
"If they don't participate, they run a real hazard in these times," he said. "The [Senate] election in Massachusetts was not so much a glorious Republican victory as a bunch of people who were damned mad saying, 'Why don't you get a handle on this stuff?' You can't get a handle on it if you don't participate."
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Alan K. Simpson graduate of University of Wyoming ... along with Dick 
Cheney ...
Cheney ...... and ... he is a member of the Iraq Study Group which was formed in 2006 ~ The Iraq Study Group was facilitated by the United States Institute of Peace, which released the Iraq Study Group's final report on their Website on December 6, 2006. (tidbit ~ Ambassador Hill's report on Iraq's gov't Feb. 16th was given at the U.S. Institute of Peace)
ERSKINE B. BOWLES President - The University of North Carolina - announced retirement Friday, February 12, 2010.
Erskine Bowles has served as president of the multi-campus University of North Carolina since January 1, 2006. Born and raised in Greensboro, N.C., he is a graduate of the University North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1967) IHand Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business (1969).
He holds eight honorary doctorates from universities and colleges throughout America.
Bowles began his business career at Morgan Stanley & Co. in New York as an associate in the corporate finance group. In that position, he saw the unfilled opportunity to provide corporate finance expertise to America’s middle-market companies.
Bowles began his business career at Morgan Stanley & Co. in New York as an associate in the corporate finance group. In that position, he saw the unfilled opportunity to provide corporate finance expertise to America’s middle-market companies.
He soon returned home to North Carolina, where he founded and served as chairman and CEO of the Charlotte-based investment banking firm that became Bowles Hollowell Connor & Co. Bowles also was a founder of Kitty Hawk Capital, a venture capital company, and Carousel Capital, a middle-market private equity company.
In 1993, Bowles was appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve as director of the Small Business Administration, and later was tapped to serve as deputy White House chief of staff (1994-95) and White House chief of staff (1996-98). As chief of staff, he helped negotiate the first balanced budget in a generation.
In 1993, Bowles was appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve as director of the Small Business Administration, and later was tapped to serve as deputy White House chief of staff (1994-95) and White House chief of staff (1996-98). As chief of staff, he helped negotiate the first balanced budget in a generation.
As a member of the National Economic Council and National Security Council, he helped guide domestic and foreign policy. In prior service as deputy White House chief of staff, Bowles helped direct the government’s response to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.
After he left the White House, he also served from 1999 to 2001 as a general partner of Forstmann Little, a New York-based private equity firm. He ran for the U.S. Senate in 2002 and 2004, and currently serves on the boards of Morgan Stanley and Cousins Properties.
In 2005, he was appointed United Nations deputy special envoy to 13 tsunami-affected countries in Southeast Asia.
