WASHINGTON — Fending off criticism from the right and the left, the co-chairmen of a special debt-reduction panel warned politicians Friday that inaction on the soaring national debt would be a job-killer on a scale worse than they can imagine.
In a wide-ranging interview, Erskine Bowles and his co-chairman, Alan Simpson, said they had tried to spread the pain across all income classes when they offered their draft debt-reduction proposals last week to members of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.
That 18-member commission is scheduled to vote by Dec. 1 on proposals to shrink federal budget deficits and tame the skyrocketing national debt, which they say menaces the nation’s future prosperity and security.
The two discussed the politics of debt reduction. Here is some of what they said:
Q: How are you arguing for tough choices?
Bowles: The things we are asking people to do are not popular. They are tough choices just like any organization goes through. . . . The only incentive for elected people doing this is it has to be done. Staying “as is” is simply not a choice. I can promise you that if we do nothing, if we stay on automatic pilot, the choice will be made for us. The markets will come, they will be swift, they will be severe, and this country will never be the same.
Q: How do you build consensus on a panel full of politicians?
Simpson: It took us three months to establish trust within this commission because the first blast was, “We wouldn’t be here if George W. Bush hadn’t done what he did.” And then the second blast was, “But this president has done four times more than that.” So . . . we cooled their juices on both sides on that. We said, “Forget it.”
Q: How do you sell the public on sacrifices?
Simpson: This is when you tell the American people one simple thing. You say, “Look, pal . . . for every buck we spend, we’re borrowing 39 cents.” . . . And then there’s another one about taxes. We’ve had a tax to support every single war in our history, the Revolutionary War on in. We’re fighting two wars with no tax to support it. . . . People are war-fatigued, but if you are going to fight a war — much less two of them — you ought to have a tax to support it, to let the American people know there is a sacrifice involved, other than the people who are fighting.
Q: What are the odds that your plan gets adopted?
Bowles: Hey, I’m not in the odds business. . . . We’ve got a chance. How good a chance? Who knows?
Q: President Barack Obama seems cool to your draft.
Bowles: He deserves all the credit; this commission is his deal. And he knew the two of us, and he knew we were serious about the deficit, that we were deficit hawks . . . and he also knew the other people he appointed to the commission were strong on the deficit and getting it down. . . . He hasn’t tried to hold us back. He has said that if we get to the promised land and we get 14 votes (to recommend changes), he’ll try to be as helpful as he possibly can, and he’s really tried not to interfere with what we’ve done. And I think that’s the appropriate position. . . . We’re going to put out what we think is the right thing for the country, and hopefully he will like parts of it. Nobody is going to like all of it.
