Alice Rivlin on compromise for deficit reduction

The Presidential commission tasked with trying to find a way to stabilize and cut our deficit will vote tomorrow on its final recommendations. Theoretically, it would then go before Congress and President Obama for consideration. The commission’s co-chairs, former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Senator Alan Simpson, made waves earlier in the month by leaking their own controversial plan and encouraging members of the panel to adopt it. Yesterday, Bowles and Simpson brought a largely unchanged plan to the full panel. Panel members then began indicating whether they’d vote for it.

Alice Rivlin is on The President’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Rivlin was the first director of the Congressional Budget office, director of the Office of Management and Budget, as well as a former Federal Reserve Vice Chair. Rivlin is also a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute. She says she will vote for the plan and that we should see it less as a painful experience and more as an opportunity for our country.