Last
Sunday Erskine Bowles of �Simpson-Bowles� fame told CNN�s
Fareed Zakaria that President Obama had not asked him
to take over as Treasury Secretary when Timothy Geithner
leaves the job and further, that he wouldn�t take the
post if it were offered.
Whew.
To
paraphrase columnist George Will�s comment on George Romney
seeking Donald Trump�s support, why would the President
even consider such a bad idea?
Reuters
says speculation about who might take the post in the
event Obama returns to the White House after November
has engaged in by �economists, investors and veterans
of past administrations.�
Bowles
was President Bill Clinton�s chief of staff. He
came to the job straight from Wall Street. He�s a partner
at private equity firm Forstmann Little & Co, a founding
partner Carousel Capital, and was among the brass at Morgan
Stanley, North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co., General
Motors, Belk stores, real estate developer Cousins Properties
and Norfolk Southern railway. Last September, he became
a member of the Board of Directors at (stay seated) Facebook.
�Erskine
has held important roles in government, academia and business,
which have given him insight into how to build organizations
and navigate complex issues,� said Facebook honcho Mark
Zuckerberg.
In
2010, Bowles was appointed by Obama to co-chair the National
Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with Alan
K. Simpson. The commission labored for months and,
alas, was unable to come up with a report that its 18
members could agree upon. In the end, Bowles and Simpson
issued a report in their own name, and since that time
has been promoted as the �Simpson-Bowles report� issued
by �the President�s own deficit reduction commission�
which it was not. Like Dracula in the moonlight it pops
up with each news cycle.
Last
Sunday, just so we wouldn�t forget it, New York Times
columnist Thomas Friedman inserted the term �Simpson-Bowles�
five times in one column. He wrote that enacting its provisions
would fix the country�s ailing economy by �trimming future
growth in Medicare and Social Security and reforming taxes.�
(Advocates of this scheme usually avoid indicating how
taxes would be reformed, whether it would mean more revenue,
and whose taxes would be affected).
A
central feature of �Simpson-Bowles� is it would reduce
resources available to seniors and people with disabilities
and would raise the retirement age. For this it has earned
the sobriquet �Catfood Commission,� a reference to the
practice of elderly turning to pet food when their meager
incomes are depleted by the cost of things like heating
oil and housing.
Back
in August 2012, Bowles� partner in all this, Sen. Alan
Simpson (R-Wyo.), sent out an email that described Social
Security as a "milk cow with 310 million tits"
that prompted calls for his removal as commission co-chair.
However, after he was said to have apologized for the
remark, a White House spokesperson said that while the
Administration regretted the remark, Simpson would nonetheless
remain in the position.
Simpson
and Bowles were in California in April to rally support
for their joint report before an audience at Oakland�s
Paramount Theater where they were met by picketers from
a number of Bay Area senior and disability advocacy organizations.
Simpson was not amused. He later sent a letter, on Senate
stationary, to the California Alliance for Retired Americans
saying �What a wretched group of seniors you must be to
use the faces of the very people we are trying to save
while the �greedy geezers� like you use them as a tool
and a front for your nefarious bunch of crap. You must
feel some sense of shame for shoveling out this bullshit.�
The
diatribe concluded, �If you can�t understand all of this
you need a pane of glass in your naval [or, perhaps, navel]
so you can see out during the day!�
"The
American people deserve and expect a true dialogue in
which retirees are more than 'greedy geezers' and those
with opposing world views aren�t treated with the total
disrespect you hand out so freely,� Max Richman, chief
executive of the National Committee to Preserve Social
Security and Medicare, and a former staff director of
the Senate Committee on Aging, shot back in a letter to
the former senator asking, �isn�t it long past time to
elevate the conversation beyond personal and profane attacks
on those you simply disagree with?" He called upon
Simpson to "cease and desist with the mean-spirited...and
hate-filled personal attacks on America's seniors."
And
to think one of this dynamic duo might have been poised
to be put in charge of our country�s finances. It causes
one to shudder.
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member
Carl Bloice is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of
the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly worked for
a healthcare union. Click here to contact Mr. Bloice.
