In his commentary, The Hijacked Commission, Paul Krugman analyzes what is wrong with the deficit reduction commission and their likely proposals.

It’s no mystery what has happened on the deficit commission: as so often happens in modern Washington, a process meant to deal with real problems has been hijacked on behalf of an ideological agenda. Under the guise of facing our fiscal problems, Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson are trying to smuggle in the same old, same old — tax cuts for the rich and erosion of the social safety net.

Can anything be salvaged from this wreck? I doubt it. The deficit commission should be told to fold its tents and go away.

The prescription that the deficit commission seems to be headed toward is remarkably like what the prescription that the IMF recommends to countries that want to borrow from the IMF. In just about every case, those that take the loan and follow the recommendations suffer great damage to their economies and people in those countries die from the results.

The Milton Friedman/Chicago School of Economics disease is about to hit this country full force if we listen to what is about to come out of this commission.