Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles will head the commission to come up with recommendations on how to cover the costs of all federal programs by 2015. Obama calls Simpson, a republican, a "flinty truth teller." Bowles ran the SBA and was chief of staff for Clinton. There will be 18 commission members in all, 4 of those will be appointed by Obama and 6 by republicans, 6 by democrats. Republicans told Timothy Geithner that they would cooperate.
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