Deficit panel falls short of demanding congressional action on plan

The bipartisan deficit commission Friday fell three votes shy of the supermajority needed to require Congress to act on its recommendations, leaving uncertain the fate of the sweeping austerity and reform proposals it offered.

Ten months after President Obama created the commission, 11 of 18 members, including lawmakers from both parties, supported its final recommendations. Fourteen votes were required to spur legislative action.

Members nonetheless argued that the blueprint they had offered would live on as lawmakers in the new Congress work to address mounting deficits.

“This plan will make an important first step forward in proving … that our nation understands the peril of our ever-increasing deficits, and that our leaders are prepared to do something real,” said Erskine Bowles, co-chair of the panel.

Recommendations in the plan, entitled, “The Moment of Truth,” include a cap on discretionary spending through 2020, an overhaul of the tax code and reforms to Social Security.

Before the vote, panelists had said that significant portions of the final report could still reach Congress in 2011 even if vote fell short of a supermajority.

“A majority of members of the commission will support the report. I also believe it will be a bipartisan majority -- a strong bipartisan majority,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who endorsed the plan in Friday’s Chicago Tribune, said in an interview Thursday. “That’s a breakthrough. That’s never happened before. And I hope it becomes a starting point for an honest, bipartisan debate on this.”

Members noted that the support of both Durbin, a key ally of President Obama and the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, and Republicans like Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a staunch fiscal conservative, show a broad spectrum of support.

“This plan will not just avert a disaster, but help drive the kind of economic recovery we need to create jobs and spur growth,” Coburn said in a joint statement with fellow Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho.

Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R- Wyoming), who co-chairs the commission with Bowles, had said that with or without 14 votes, the expectation that lawmakers will be required to raise the nation’s debt limit next spring will ensure that the panel’s recommendations live on.

A new Republican majority that owes its success in part to “tea party” activism will be reluctant to endorse a higher limit without strong action to reduce the deficit.