There is an old joke that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. The joke is that committees rarely accomplish anything good because the people on them are too busy looking for common ground. Sometimes common ground is not the answer--leadership is!
CNBC is reporting today that the presidential commission to cut the deficit did not receive enough votes among its members to trigger congressional action. Is anyone actually surprised by this? The commission needed 14 votes to send its plan to Congress for legislative action. They received 11 votes. The article lists the actual votes. It is interesting that Andy Stern (former president of the SEIU) and Congressman Paul Ryan both voted against the plan. There were Republicans who voted for it and Democrats who voted against it, so this was not a party-line vote. According the the article at CNBC, the proposed deficit-reduction plan is expected to have an impact on future budget debates.
Leadership does happen in Congress. Although I do not agree with all of Paul Ryan's Roadmap, I think that plan for cutting the deficit is a really good place to start. Hopefully, in January the Republcans will respond to the message of the American voters and begin an intelligent debate on curbing spending and cutting the deficit.
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