Former Clinton aide to join Obama debt commission

Bruce Reed, a former domestic policy aide in the Clinton White House, will serve as executive director for President Barack Obama's debt commission, The New York Times reported Monday.

Reed ran President Bill Clinton's Domestic Policy Council and served as chairman of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.

Reed would join on the panel two other former Clinton aides who helped craft balanced budgets in the 1990s: former White House Budget Director Alice Rivlin and former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, whom Obama has named a co-chairman of his deficit commission.

The 18-member bipartisan commission will try to produce a fiscal reform plan to rein in the $12.5 trillion debt. Congressional leaders have pledged to allow the panel's proposal to come up for floor votes.

As the group's executive director, Reed won't be a voting member but will likely have a hand in crafting the reform plan, which needs the support of 14 of the committee's members before it moves to Congress.