Remember that Fiscal Commission (officially the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform) President Obama created back in February, which he tasked with balancing the budget by 2015? Turns out solving the nation’s fiscal crisis isn’t quite as easy as it sounds. Yesterday, the Commission’s two co-chairs released a proposal of sorts, a draft of a plan that would bring down the deficit to 2 percent of GDP by 2014, and lower the national debt to 34 percent of GDP by 2040. The co-chairs trumpeted those figures, but the plan was greeted by almost universal ire, since it attacks sacred cows on both the left and the right. Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist threatened that Republicans who supported the proposal would be breaking their “no tax” pledge. Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO, said the plan “tells working Americans to ‘Drop Dead.’”

Everyone hates the chairmen's proposal because it contains specifics on how to tame the deficit and stabilize the debt, not just vague statements. The left hates the proposal because it cuts Social Security benefits and takes an axe to discretionary spending, naming specific programs to cut. The right hates it because it targets specific defense programs and might end up raising net tax rates. Members of Congress pledged to consider the plan, which is code for “I wouldn’t be caught dead voting for this.” Pretty much the only people in favor of the plan are the editorial boards of a handful of publications, who unfortunately can’t vote in Congress.

I won’t go into a serious analysis of the proposal, since it’s just that. A proposal; a draft one at that. It isn’t the Commission’s official report, since there is no way fourteen of the eighteen Commission members would ever vote for this plan (the requisite number for official approval of a report), and there’s just as much chance of this thing getting through Congress alive. While I’m impressed that the chairmen put out the plan, with specifics of tax expenditures and spending programs to cut, I’ll be more impressed when they come up with a plan that can get through either the Commission or Congress. So keep an eye out on December 1, when the Commission is supposed to release its actual report.

For more thoughts on the proposal, check out the Economic Policy Institute and Mother Jones.

Image by Flickr user The White House used under a Creative Commons license.