By Gregory Childress
gchildress@heraldsun.com; 419-6645
CHAPEL HILL -- UNC system President Erskine Bowles was still on message Friday, a day after he returned from Washington where he was named co-chairman of President Barack Obama's new deficit commission.
"[The deficit is] like a cancer that's growing and it's going to destroy us from within," Bowles said.
Bowles, a Democrat, will co-chair the bi-partisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming.
Obama has asked the commission to come up with recommendations to help reel in the federal deficit. The commission's report is due on the president's desk by Dec. 1, which is the same month Bowles is likely to step down as UNC system president.
Bowles said the deficit is a serious threat to the nation's fiscal health and could have a detrimental effect on small businesses by creating smaller pools of money from which they can draw to expand and put people to work.
And he said the interest on the nation's debt could siphon money away from education, research and development and other important programs.
Bowles said getting the nation's debt under control will require tough decisions.
"It's going to be painful no matter what we recommend," Bowles said.
Bowles knows of which he speaks. He has experience and has been successful in public budgetary matters in the past.
While serving as President Bill Clinton's chief of staff, Bowles helped broker the 1997 budget agreement with Republicans that produced the first balance budget in nearly 30 years.
"I proved I could earn the trust of people on both sides of the aisle," Bowles said.
Turning to his duties as UNC system president, Bowles said he doesn't foresee a problem juggling the two roles.
He said his work plan for the next 10 months is clearly laid out in his 2009-10 Action Plan so that he can be held accountable.
The plan outlines actions the system will take to improve K-12 education in the state, increase access to higher education, transform universities to be more nimble, efficient and responsive, increase the UNC system's focus on research and become more actively engaged in economic transformation and upgrade talent and raise performance standards.
"I'm going to do my job," Bowles said.
