FINANCIAL TIMES: …Mr Obama’s dire message came as Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, co-chairs of the president’s 2010 bipartisan debt commission, presented a revised plan to avert the automatic cuts with $2.4tn in additional deficit reduction over 10 years.
Mr Bowles and Mr Simpson are challenging Mr Obama and Democrats to cut government healthcare and pension programmes more deeply than they would like, while asking Republicans, who oppose any new tax rises, to accept an additional $600bn in new revenues over 10 years.
The two deficit hawks are, however, unlikely to broker a “grand bargain”, as Democrats and Republicans have only grown further apart on budget policy in the past few months… (more)
