Obama Panel to Meet

WASHINGTON (AP) - Members of President Barack Obama's bipartisan

fiscal commission meet for the first time today.

And even they admit it might be nearly impossible to find a

consensus by next fall for reducing federal deficits that threaten

to erode Americans' standard of living.

The 18-member panel has instructions to deliver its

recommendations after the November election. The group includes

Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota.

Conrad says the group has a "tremendous responsibility" to

come up with a bipartisan plan that puts the nation back on a sound

fiscal course.

The commission is charged with producing a deficit no bigger

than $550 billion by 2015, an amount equal to about 3 percent of

the total U.S. economy. That would require deficit savings in the

range of $250 billion or more.

The panel's co-chairman, former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of

Wyoming, recently called it "a suicide mission."

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