Deficit Commission Recommendations Fail To Get Sufficient Votes

President Obama’s deficit commission voted 11-7 in favor of the panel’s recommendations according to The Hill newspaper, but the vote was a failure under the commission’s bylaws. For the report to be forwarded to Congress for action, 14 of the 18 commissioners needed to vote in favor of the report. Commission co-chairman Erkine Bowles remains optimistic that major portions of it will factor into congressional debate over the FY2012 budget, however, according to the National Journal (subscription required).

The publication quotes Bowles as saying that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) “said that 85 percent of what we proposed is going to be in his budget; it doesn’t get any better than that.” Ryan is expected to chair the House Budget Committee next year and is a member of the commission, but did not support the report.

The commission’s recommendations were released on Wednesday. They do not directly affect NASA or NOAA space programs, but could have a profound indirect effect since the commission calls for significant cuts to discretionary spending. NASA and NOAA both are encompassed in that part of the federal budget.