Dean Baker protests:
There Was No Bowles-Simpson Commission Reports: The New York Times badly misled readers by repeatedly referring to a report of the deficit reduction commission led by former Senator Alan Simpson and Morgan Stanley Director Erskine Bowles. There was no report from this commission. The "report"… was exclusively the [draft mark] of the co-chairs. It did not receive the necessary support of 14 members of the commission that would have made it an official commission report, a point noted only in passing toward the end of the piece.
This mis-characterization is extremely important in the context of the piece, because the main point of the article is that President Obama ignored the report of a commission he appointed. Since this commission did not approve a report, the premise of the article is wrong….
It is also worth noting that much of the projected long-term deficit would disappear if the Affordable Care Act is as successful in containing costs as projected by the Medicare Trustees.
