Debt-Reduction Advocates Offer New Year’s Resolution

By JACKIE CALMES
NYT

President Obama’s Treasury secretary and budget director met at the White House with members of his bipartisan debt-reduction commission Thursday morning and agreed that the administration should lead an effort in the coming year to press for the sort of long-term spending cuts and revenue increases that a commission majority recommended last week.

Participants said the discussion centered on the need for a deficit-cutting agreement before mid-2011, by which time Congress will have to approve an increase in the federal debt limit so the government can keep borrowing to meet existing obligations.

Many Republicans warn that they will oppose a hike in the debt limit – a threat that could unnerve markets and, if carried out, trigger a government default – unless deep spending cuts are in place. Mr. Obama and Democrats oppose the scale of cuts Republicans propose, and Republicans have offered few specifics.

After the White House meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Jack Lew, Mr. Obama’s budget director, the bipartisan co-chairmen of the fiscal commission issued a statement calling on Mr. Obama to launch negotiations with leaders of both parties when Congress returns in January and to propose his own debt-reduction plan in his budget and State of the Union address early in the year to get the talks underway.

(More here.)