A published report said the president might establish a similar but weaker task force on his own. The special deficit panel killed by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday would have attempted to produce a plan combining tax increases and spending curbs to be voted on after the November elections. Congress would have been forced to vote on the commission’s suggestions. The measure went down because anti-tax Republicans joined in opposition with Democrats wary of being railroaded into cutting Social Security and Medicare, the costly pension and health programs for the elderly.
With Congress unwilling to go along, Obama will announce during Wednesday’s State of the Union address that he is establishing a similar panel by executive order, The New York Times reported late Tuesday on its Web site. The alternative panel will also come up with recommendations to tackle the national debt, the Times said. But unlike the commission proposal killed by the Senate, the executive order could not force Congress to vote on the panel’s suggestions. The vote to kill the special deficit task force came hours after the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency that analyzes the U.S. budget, predicted a $1.35 trillion deficit -- $4,500 for every American -- for this year. The report predicts a sluggish economic recovery and continued high unemployment -- which presages big political problems for Obama and his Democratic allies heading into the midterm elections.
