A Deficit of Respect

The Bowles-Simpson commission report got measured praise from the right, a full dose of scorn from the left.

By TOBIN HARSHAW
NYT

Here’s this week’s Beltway Best-Seller: Read it while it’s hot.

Weighing in at 50 pages in very large type (all the better for you retirees to see how your Social Security benefits are going to change), the draft report from Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the chairmen of President Obama’s bipartisan deficit-reduction panel, has brought out the inner wonk of bloggers everywhere. It has also, we are told, brought out bipartisan ire.

“Among Democrats, liberals are in near revolt against the White House over the issue, even as substantive and political forces push Mr. Obama to attack chronic deficits in a serious way,” reports The Times’s Jackie Calmes. “At the same time, Republicans face intense pressure from their conservative base and the Tea Party movement to reject any deal that includes tax increases, leaving their leaders with little room to maneuver in any negotiation and at risk of being blamed by voters for not doing their part.”

Certainly, people on both sides of the political spectrum are riled up about the recommendations, but that doesn’t mean they are equally disgruntled. While Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform warns that “Support for the commission chair plan would be a violation of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which over 235 congressmen and 41 senators have made to their constituents,” the Wall Street Journal’s editorial gave it a mixed review and some conservative bloggers are skeptical of the whole idea, the reception from the right has been largely warm. When National Review, Ross Douthat, Greg Mankiw, Commentary and former Senator Fred Thompson all sing the praises of a “bipartisan” report, one can hardly claim there’s been a conservative backlash.

Liberals, on the other hand, have for the most part been scathingly negative. Here’s the economist Brad DeLong:

(More here.)

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