#Commissions

Congressional leaders last week appointed the joint committee charged with finding most of the savings promised in the recent deal to raise the debt limit.Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) will chair the new panel, widely referred…

This post originally appeared on The American Square (more…)

If President Obama and Republican leaders in Congress hope to build consensus around a plan for fiscal sustainability, they are off on the wrong track. They seem instead to be sharpening their differences.A meaningful long-term plan will require compromises in…

House Republicans have adopted a budget they say will make tough but necessary spending cuts to rein in our nation’s burgeoning budget deficits. President Obama says the Republican plan is too radical. He hit the road last week to sell…

Alice Rivlin of the Brookings Institution focused on the importance of Medicare reform in testimony to both the Senate and House budget committees last week, suggesting that the program should shift to a "premium support" model beginning in 2018.Under such…

With unsustainable deficits projected over the coming decade, President Obama and the House of Representatives should embrace a call from 64 senators of both parties to “engage in a broader discussion about a comprehensive deficit reduction package.”The need for such…

Representatives Jim Cooper (D-TN), Aaron Schock (R-IL), Mike Quigley (D-IL) and Joe Walsh (R-IL) have introduced legislation (H.R. 606) creating a sunset commission to help eliminate duplicative, unnecessary or inefficient federal programs.The bipartisan commission would provide Congress with recommendations for…

Proposals from President Obama’s fiscal commission and other bipartisan panels that issued reports last year are drawing renewed attention as the new Congress gets to work.Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), for example, has introduced a bill that would cut federal spending…