WASHINGTON – President Obama’s debt commission rejected a $3.8 trillion budget-cutting plan Friday as members from both parties opposed its mix of tax increases and spending cuts in programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

The seven votes against the plan were enough to sink it, even though 11 of the 18 members voted in favor, because 14 were needed to forward the proposal to Congress for consideration. Five of the six senators on the panel backed the plan, as did five of the six unelected officials. Five of six House members opposed it, with the sole support coming from South Carolina Democrat John Spratt, who was defeated in the Nov. 2 election.

Panel co-chairman Erskine Bowles called the 11 votes a “strong, bipartisan majority” and said “no one on this commission and very few left in America are in denial that this threat pressed upon us by these ever-increasing deficits are something we have to deal with.”

The spotlight now shifts to the White House, where Obama must decide how much of the report to incorporate into his February budget request. “We simply cannot allow our nation to be dragged down by our debt,” he said in a statement issued during a trip to Afghanistan.

Senate Budget Committee The rejected proposal would have reduced the annual deficit to about $400 billion in 2015, from this year’s $1.3 trillion, and begin reducing the debt.

 

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