bipartisan commission

     I dropped by a forum of the Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform yesterday, the  earnest  group of budget mavens that's been pushing  for a bipartisan deficit commission and is itself a dress rehearsal for such a commision.

     Unfortunately, as polite as the discussion was, the gridlock was obvious.  It didn't bode well for President Obama's plans to name a bipartisan commission on Thursday.

     Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former CBO director who was John McCain's top economic adviser during the presidential campaign, sounded dispassionate until you listened to the nuances.  Without flatly rejecting the idea of tax increases to help close the deficit, Holtz-Eakin pointedly insisted that spending was the main problem and that "we cannot tax our way" out of this.