PDA

View Full Version : Democrats desperate to avoid debate questions about Obama's Simpson-Bowles commission



Little-Acorn
08-15-2012, 02:02 PM
It's all caving in on the Democrats, a little more each day.

Answering questions, telling the truth, is the one thing they dare not do. All they can do, is try desperately to keep the questions from being asked.

-----------------------------------------------

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/15/house-dems-its-totally-unfair-to-have-a-debate-question-on-obamas-deficit-commission-which-he-ignored/

House Dems: It’s totally unfair to have a debate question on the deficit commission Obama created and then ignored

posted at 10:01 am on August 15, 2012
by Ed Morrissey

Some Democratic lawmakers want to make sure that one question does not get asked at the upcoming first presidential debate – about Simpson-Bowles.

Three Democratic House members objected Tuesday to a request by four senators that President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney be asked which of the commission’s proposals to address the debt they support. The Democrats said such a question would force “candidates to choose solutions from one menu of options.” …

But that caused Reps. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) to cry foul, writing in their own letter to the debate commission on Tuesday that although the Simpson-Bowles commission’s plan “may contain proposals helpful to our recovery…to hold it out as the only pathway to fiscal responsibility and economic success is foolish and wrong.”

“We urge the [Debate] Commission to fight any effort to unnecessarily narrow such an important debate by placing disproportionate attention on one set of proposals over another,” they wrote, adding that such a question would “cheapen the debate” and “thwart the candidates’ ability to explain alternative proposals.”

----------------------------------------

On the face of it, this is a ridiculous assertion. Asking one question about the Simpson-Bowles plan doesn’t restrict a range of answers on budget reforms and deficits. The moderators can ask other questions on the topic, and the candidates themselves can expand on those options in their answers to the Simpson-Bowles question. Ryan will almost certainly do so, since he served on the commission and passed his own version of budgetary reform in the House — twice.

But of course, this isn’t about the range of options in the debate. Democrats don’t want Barack Obama to have to answer for his total rejection of the commission he called into existence in the first place. Obama announced his grand plan to find consensus on the deficits after taking a beating on the massive deficits his budgets ran up, a few months before the midterm elections. He wanted to gain traction against the rising Tea Party by taking away one of the key fiscal arguments. When that plan failed, Obama completely ignored the recommendations from Simpson-Bowles even though the panel was a presidential advisory commission.

logroller
08-15-2012, 02:08 PM
Yet more evidence the debates are farcical. Color me surpised. :rolleyes:

Little-Acorn
08-15-2012, 02:18 PM
Obama had better be a master at changing the subject and ducking questions.... because at the debates, he can run, but he can't hide.