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The Republican Party has proven this election that President Obama was correct when he didnt automatically support the recommendations of the two chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which is much better known as the Bowles-Simpson (or as I typically call it, the B-S) commission.

First, some quick background.

I was one of the biggest critics of the B-S commission when I was blogging at Capital Gains and Games.

I said the recommendations by the commissions two chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson were completely unworkable and politically unacceptable. I said the commissions process, which attempted to take the politics out of the inherently political issue of deficit reduction, couldnt possibly succeed.

I was extremely critical of the attempts by Bowles and Simpson to claim that they and the commission had succeeded even though their proposal didnt get the required number of votes to be approved. In fact, there was no formal vote on their proposal when it became clear it didnt have enough support to move forward.

I also was furious that Bowles and Simpson kept referring to their recommendations as the commissions report even though there was no report, and that the two co-chairs reportedly were receiving $40,000 each in speaking fees to talk to various groups about what they were doing.

But all these were basically small issues compared to the biggest arguments I had about the B-S commission: President Obamas refusal to embrace what Bowles and Simpson recommended.

The presidents detractors insisted that he was bound to accept what was recommended because the commission was created by an executive order he issued. I had three points in response.

First, the fact that it was a presidential commission didnt mean the White House was bound by it any more than a congressionally committee would have bound Congress. The president deserved credit for creating the deficit commission that Congress was unwilling to do, but he never agreed to follow what was recommended. In fact, the procedure outlined in the executive order was that a formal recommendation would be sent to Congress and would only go to the president if the House and Senate approved it. He had no obligation to support it first.

Second, the commission never actually recommended anything so there was nothing for the president to embrace. As noted above, B-S failed to get the number of votes required by the executive order and so in fact failed to make any recommendation. Third, given the Republican opposition to the tax increases and mandatory program reductions recommended by the two co-chairs (it was a lack of GOP support that prevented the plan from getting the supermajority it needed to be sent to Congress), it would have been political suicide for the president to accept the proposal unilaterally.

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