I am *very* concerned about what this illustrates about the dysfunction of our Congress. The Senate can no longer even bring itself to appoint a commission to PROPOSE ways of reducing the deficit. The Republicans have steadfastly refused to compromise on any tax increases, and some Democrats are worried that the commission will propose entitlement cuts. How can we ever hope to get our finances under control if these suggestions are both off-limits forever?
We need some serious reform of the legislative process itself, lest our Congress becomes as dysfunctional as the Italian Parliament. We need to either adopt Sen. Harkin's proposal to ease cloture requirements, or go back to the old Senate rules of requiring those in favor of a filibuster to actually filibuster.
And I'm in favor of even more commissions like these in lieu of the dysfunctional manner in which Congress usually handles financial matters. If it was up to me, we'd have technocrats writing the legislation for just about all economic issues, with Congress only getting to vote yes or no.
These are all valid points, and I'm strugging with my own hesitation toward this panel because I wholeheartedly support the creation of similar things in other areas, such as in Medicare/aid. I think I've come up with the reasons why:
1) The decisions on what types of procedures to cover and how much to pay for them would be made by apolitical experts, and
2) The decisions on what types of procedures to cover and how much to pay for them would affect the citizenry with little correlation to political position or ideology.
In the case of the proposed panel, I'm much less trusting because the people making the decisions will be self-interested politicians subject to the forces of their parties at large, and because there are many ways to cut spending or raise taxes that would disproportionately harm one group over another.
If there were a way to impanel a group of experts that would be as apolitical as possible (maybe including some former legislatures) that would propose a few sets of recommendations, I would be much more supportive.
Another note:
As bad as some of you might see the rejection of this panel as being, it could very well be a good thing. Imagine that the panel is enacted and is seated with 10 Democrats and 8 Republicans. The recommendations aren't released until after the Nov. elections, so Congress spends the next 10 months ignoring the problem of the deficit simply because they've delegated it to someone else to deal with. The elections happen and the Republicans pick up a handful of seats due to disillusionment among the Democrat base, making the political stakes that much higher. With that background, I can very easily see the Democrats coming forward with a proposal that would be very friendly to their base in order to get them back, with the Republicans on the panel being stridently opposed in order to try to highlight the partisanship.
The end result is that we'll have wasted 10 months, increased the rancor in DC, gotten absolutely nothing passed, and will have turned Congress and the public off of the idea of creating panels like this that could be so useful in other scenarios.
