Deficit solutions: ‘Day of reckoning’

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As a bipartisan commission assigned to find solutions for the nation’s spiraling budget deficits convened at the White House Tuesday, President Obama maintained that all possible fixes will be on the table and that ‘a day of reckoning’’ is near.

‘I’m not going to say what’s in. I’m not going to say what’s out,’’ Obama said Tuesday morning. ‘I want this commission to do its work.’’

Obama was flanked in the Rose Garden by the co-chairmen of the Fiscal Commission that he appointed: Democrat Erskine Bowles and Republican Alan Simpson.

‘It’s a lot easier to spend a dollar than to save one,’’ said Obama, who has presided over a runaway record in the federal budget deficit during his first year in office, in the aftermath of a government bailout of the financial industry and with an economic stimulus intended to spur new job growth. ‘That’s what, at root, led to these exploding deficits. That’s what has led to this day of reckoning.’’

For more details see the Swamp.--Mark Silva