Based on the election year hyper-focus on the economy, and the nation’s future, the result of these deliberations could not have greater consequence.
What direction the nation takes on tax reform, discretionary spending, and entitlements will affect every American, as well as future generations.
“Do we still have the political will to be a great country?” asked David Cote, one of four non-congressional members of the commission.
“If we don’t, we won’t be great, and we’ll never be great again.”
Cote, who is also CEO of Honeywell International, said he believes members of the deficit commission are setting aside partisanship and having a rational discussion about the nation’s debt problem.
“Now, if only the rest of the 534 members of Congress would cooperate,” he said during a keynote speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Oct. 20. President Obama considers the Chamber an opposition group.
The Chamber shone a spotlight on the current fiscal crisis Wednesday by hosting a four hour marathon discussion on the topic, which featured no less than sixteen experts.
The experts agreed that action is needed.
Rudolph Penner, Director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1983 to 1987,
and a chief economist for the Office of Management and Budget during the Ford Administration, likened the current situation to a train wreck waiting to happen. He warned that a shock could occur, potentially sending interest rates through the roof.
“I think at some point our creditors just loose patience. They don’t have to dump our securities. They just have to start buying less of them, and we are in deep trouble,” said Alice Rivlin, Senior Fellow, in Economic Studies with The Brookings Institution.
We need a “rationally deliberative process of closing this deficit,” said Penner.
In the 1990s, when the Clinton administration came together to overcome their economic crisis, and quickly created surpluses, the debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio was 42 percent.
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