The Tax Policy Center (TPC), a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, released a new report yesterday examining the nation's budget outlook over, what TPC describes as, "10-year and long-term horizons." The paper, whose title recalls a famous Yogi Berra quote, examines these horizons under three sets of assumptions: the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline, an extended policy scenario, and the administration's FY 2011 budget proposal.

Yesterday, I happened upon a short post by Berkeley economist Brad DeLong in which he quoted from a recent Daily Caller article taking the temperature of DC insiders prior to the start of President Obama's debt commission. DeLong found Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) comments about eliminating $300 billion worth of waste in Medicaid through the commission discouraging, as "[t]otal Medicaid spending this year is currently pegged at $280 billion." Notwithstanding his obvious mistake, I thought Coburn's comments were encouraging.

An article in The Hill on Saturday provided a glimmer of hope for those of us keeping an eye on President Obama’s debt panel. According to the piece, “Republicans aren’t ruling out raising taxes or any other option for dealing with the country’s debt problem as they head into the White House fiscal commission’s first meeting,” which is scheduled for early next week.

According to a Bureau of National Affairs article (subscription required) from earlier today, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairs of the 18-member panel created by President Obama to devise strategies for reducing the nation's debt and deficits, have sent a letter to members informing them that the panel's first meeting will commence April 27. Formally known as the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR?), the panel has a disastrously devised procedural process that is likely to produce either gridlock or, at best, water downed recommendations.