Let me share with you my thoughts on this useless exercise.
I was not amused listening to the speeches from the members of the deficit commission. I was saddened.
Alan Simpson opened it up in his inimitable way. He thinks he is oh so witty, oblivious to the fact that many of us find him offensive. If I wanted to be amused I would tune in to the Simpsons. Needless to say, he and Bowles belong to a mutual admiration club. This highlights the bigger problem. Forget party affiliations folks; the plutocrascy is well represented in the Democratic party. This may be the reason Obama finds it so difficult to accomplish his goals.
Dick Durbin was a surprise to me. What has he been smoking? Sometimes the human mind works in mysterious ways.
The commission failed miserably simply because, as Xavier Beccera pointed out, they chose not to look even into the root causes of the problem. Two unjust and costly wars, the relentless outsourcing of our jobs and the tax cuts for the truly rich were all swept under the carpet. Jan Schakowski to her credit brought these to the fore.
Another folly was the focus on Social Security. Ignoring the fact that the SS Trust has been used for decades as a piggy bank raided for all kinds of nefarious enterprises. Never mind the fact that Social Security has not contributed a single dime to the deficit, they made it look as though it were the culpit! We were informed that if we did nothing, by 2037 or so the fund will go minto the red, overlooking the fact that at the rate we are going the Country is not going to last that long! An analogy I am going to draw on this is that of a patient that must be operated to remove a mole when he is bleeding to death from an open artery. That my friends is a red herring.
Lastly, as some of the members of the committee pointed out, the poor and the dwindling middle class is asked to pay for all of this while the plutocrats party on! The call that making the tough choices. Tough choices for whom?
Good bye and good riddance Mrss Simpson and Bowles. You have met our expectations from you and we hope we never hear from you again.