Will it matter?

The latest trillion-dollar question: If President Barack Obama's latest deficit panel, led by Vice President Joe Biden, comes up with a long-range, comprehensive plan that can find bipartisan support in Congress. Will he ignore it as he did his first panel's recommendations?

The latest panel will have its first meeting in May, with a goal of coming up with a deficit-reduction plan. The president's first panel, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, came out with wide-ranging recommendations in December, but only 11 of 18 members supported it. And Obama essentially ignored it, though he now says the commission informed his thinking on his latest budget proposals.

And how will all this square with an upcoming plan from the Senate's Gang of Six? Those six Democrats who have been working on their plan for months.

A case of too many committees working toward the same goal? Maybe, but only if neither can get the job done.

And it needs to get done. The country needs to get away from deficit spending. It needs to start paying down the national debt.

And whatever budget plan emerges needs to include an overhaul of the federal tax code.

- Loveland (Colo.) Daily Reporter