My man N.H. Sen. Judd Greg (who is in his last term unfortunately): "Congress is more concerned with the next election than the next generation."

From The New York Times:

Advocates of more aggressive steps to address the national debt failed Tuesday in their effort to create a bipartisan commission to press for tax increases and spending cuts, but President Obama now plans to establish a similar panel by executive order in his State of the Union address on Wednesday.

The proposal for a commission died when its supporters could not muster enough votes in the Senate to push it ahead, reflecting unwillingness among many Republicans to back any move toward tax increases and objections among Democrats to the prospect of deep spending cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. While 53 senators voted for the plan and 46 against, it needed 60 votes to be approved under Senate rules.

The alternative panel to be established by Mr. Obama will also come up with recommendations by December to reduce annual budget deficits and slow or reverse the growth of the national debt. But unlike the commission proposal killed by the Senate, Mr. Obama’s executive order could not force Congress to vote on a commission’s suggestions.

The vote on a commission proposal was the price that fiscally conservative senators extracted from Congressional Democratic leaders as the price for their support later this week in a vote to increase the $12 trillion debt limit. Without an increase, the government soon could not borrow to cover its obligations.

The proposal, co-sponsored by Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, the chairman of the Budget Committee, and Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the committee’s senior Republican, called for an 18-member commission — eight lawmakers from each party and two administration officials — to draft a package that Congress would have to vote on in December without amending it.

After the vote, Mr. Conrad said he was “delighted” to have gotten 53 votes, adding, “I think that provides a significant boost to the momentum that is under way to begin to address the very deep challenge of a burgeoning debt.”

But Mr. Gregg, in a statement, said the outcome was “yet another indication that Congress is more concerned with the next election than the next generation.”

In an interview, however, Mr. Gregg would not commit to supporting a presidential commission. “It would still have no force of law to bind the Congress to do anything, and there really aren’t a whole lot of giants around here,” he said.