January 22, 2010

The Debt Reduction Commission: Another Gergen-Shields Show

By Ken Blackwell
Whenever the Establishment in Washington gets a Big Idea about the need to get beyond partisanship, reach for your wallet. The latest Big Idea is President Obama's proposal for an Executive Commission on Debt Reduction. The idea is modeled on the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC). That commission had as its task closing military bases we thought we did not need in the post-Cold War era. The reason we needed BRAC, we were told, is that too many local congressmen were protecting the bases in their own districts, and none of the excess bases could be closed. It was blowing out the Pentagon budget, they said.President Obama wants a commission to help him stop excess spending. Even if we do not pass his health care proposals, the rising costs of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are projected to grow so vast that they will reach 300% of the Gross Domestic Product by the year 2050. This would require tax hikes of $12,072 per family in the U.S.Clearly, we can't continue on...(Read Full Article)