April 14, 2012
Today Ezra Klein is guilty of that standard Washington insider mistake of referring to a Bowles-Simpson commission report. In his column, he contrasts the tax increases proposed by the commission (along with increases advocated by others), with the pledges by Romney to raise taxes on no one and the pledge by President Obama to not raise taxes on anyone other than the top 2 percent.
Of course there was no Bowles-Simpson commission report. The by-laws clearly state:
“The Commission shall vote on the approval of a final report containing a set of recommendations to achieve the objectives set forth in the Charter no later than December 1, 2010. The issuance of a final report of the Commission shall require the approval of not less than 14 of the 18 members of the Commission.”
There was no vote taken on anything by December 1. (In fact there was never a formal vote.) And the report touted as being the commission report never had the support of more than 11 of the 18 members of the commission report.
Hence this report is accurately described as the report of the co-chairs, Morgan Stanley director Erskine Bowles and former Senator Alan Simpson. In other words, the “Moment of Truth” is a lie.
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