Faced with bipartisan budget negotiations in 1990, Congress hammered together a plan that tackled the nation’s fiscal crisis at that time. Wednesday, policy experts explore lessons learned to help guide the current budget impasse.
The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), George Mason University and Deloitte hosts the forum titled "Looking Back to Move Forward: The 1990 Debt Budget Summit Revisited."
Two panels applied their past Congressional and policy expertise to search for solutions to the "fiscal cliff." The first panel reviewed the significance of the Budget Summit. Participants included budget experts; former Senate Budget Committee Chairman and BPC Senior Fellow Pete Domenici, former Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) along with former Speaker Tom Foley (D-WA) and Rep. David Obey (D-WI).
The second panel discussed how political leaders today can use this knowledge to navigate the current fiscal challenge. The panel featured journalists who cover the budget including: The New York Times’ Jackie Calmes and NPR’s Ron Elving, Columbia Law School’s Michael Graetz, and Phil Joyce of the University of Maryland.