Fiscal Commission Fails to Garner Enough Votes for Final Report

In a portentous disappointment yesterday, the New York Times reports that the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform voted 11-7 in favor of the report it released on December 1 but failed to gather the fourteen votes necessary to send the proposal to Congress for a vote.[1]

The Commission had eighteen members, six appointed by the President, twelve appointed by Congress, six from each chamber, split equally among the two parties. The President's appointees voted 5-1 for. At that rate, if the President had chosen all the members of the Commission, the plan would have probably passed. But the President doesn't vote in Congress, and Congress is the branch that will have to create the laws to implement the reform, and of course, the dissension on the panel came from among Congress's twelve appointees, six from each chamber, split equally among the two parties. Congress's total representation split down the middle, 6-6. The parties likewise both split down the middle, 3-3, but the two chambers did not. Like the President's appointees, the Senate appointees voted 5-1 for, but the House appointees, however, voted 5-1 against.

Notes

[1] The only reference to fourteen votes in the Executive Order creating the Commission is Section 5(b), which says, "The issuance of a final report of the Commission shall require the approval of not less than 14 of the 18 members of the Commission." Thus, "final report" appears to be some sort of term of art meaning the proposal of a President's commission that it submitted to Congress for consideration.