The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform members failed to get the number of votes needed to send the deficit reduction plan they released earlier in the week to Congress for a vote. The vote was held Friday morning in Washington. 14 votes were needed out of the 18 members, but only 11 members voted in favor.
Despite the failure to send their report to Congress, the recommendations from the committee have garnered a great deal of attention by the public. FedSmith.com readers certainly are familiar with some of the committee’s recommendations since they could be directly affected if they were to pass.
Among the committee’s recommendations were a 3 year freeze on federal pay and using the highest five years of earnings to calculate civil service pension benefits for new retirees (CSRS and FERS), rather than the highest three years.
For additional information about the committee’s report, see “Commission Proposes ‘High-Three’ to ‘High-Five’ for Retirement, Pay Freeze and Changes to FEHB for Federal Employees.”
How They Voted
The Nays
- Baucus
- Becerra
- Camp
- Hensarling
- Ryan
- Schakowsky
- Stern
Total: 7
The Ayes
- Bowles
- Coburn
- Conrad
- Cote
- Crapo
- Durbin
- Fudge
- Gregg
- Rivlin
- Simpson
- Spratt
Total: 11
Commission Members
Co-Chairmen:
Sen. Alan Simpson. Former Republican Senator from Wyoming.
Erskine Bowles, Chief of Staff to President Clinton
Executive Director:
Bruce Reed, Chief Domestic Policy Adviser to President Clinton
Commissioners:
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT)
Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA 31)
Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI 4)
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK)
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND)
David Cote, Chairman and CEO, Honeywell International
Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID)
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL)
Ann Fudge, Former CEO, Young & Rubicam Brands
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH)
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX 5)
Alice Rivlin, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institute and former Director, Office of Management & Budget
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI 1)
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL 9)
Rep. John Spratt (D-SC 5)
Andrew Stern, President, Service Employees International Union
Statement by the President on the Work of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform
“I want to thank the members of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform for their important work in highlighting the magnitude of the challenge before us, and outlining an array of options to confront it. Jobs and growth are our most urgent need. But if we want an America that can compete for the jobs of tomorrow, we simply cannot allow our nation to be dragged down by our debt. We must correct our fiscal course.
Nothing would be more valuable to addressing this challenge than strong, sustained economic growth. But the Commission’s report underscores that to sustain growth in the medium and long term we need to face some difficult choices to curb runaway debt. It will require cutting the spending we don’t need in order to invest in what’s necessary to grow our economy and our middle-class. It will require all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to find common ground without compromising the fundamental principles we hold dear. Because the undeniable fact is that no one party can successfully tackle this challenge alone.
Chairmen Bowles and Simpson met the charge that I gave them and the Commission: to bring our deficits down in the medium term and to meaningfully improve our long-run fiscal situation so that we can keep commitments made to future generations. The Commission’s majority report includes a number of specific proposals that I – along with my economic team — will study closely in the coming weeks as we develop our budget and our priorities for the coming year. This morning, my budget director, Jack Lew, spoke with Chairman Bowles and invited the entire Commission in to meet with him and Secretary Geithner to discuss the Commission’s proposals. Overall, my goal is to build on the steps we’ve already taken to reduce our deficit, like slowing the growth of health care costs, proposing a three-year freeze in non-security discretionary spending and a two-year pay freeze for federal civilian workers, and restoring the rule that we pay for all of our priorities.
I don’t doubt our ability to meet this challenge, but our success depends on our willingness to engage in the kind of honest conversation and cooperation that hasn’t always happened in Washington. We cannot afford to fall back on old ideologies, and we will all have to budge on long-held positions. So I ask members of both parties to maintain an open mind and a commitment to progress as we work to lift this burden from the shoulders of future generations.”
