Over the holiday week, the commission’s staff revised the draft plan from its chairmen  Alan K. Simpson, a former Senate Republican leader, and Erskine B. Bowles, president of the University of North Carolina system and a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton  to reflect contributions made at meetings this month by the rest of the commission, six senior members of Congress from each party and four business and union leaders.

Even if the commission fizzles, its chairmen’s plan and the alternatives  about a half-dozen packages from centrists and conservatives, and now the two from the liberal groups  have demonstrated a rough consensus for all their differences: action is needed once the economy recovers, and the fiscal problem cannot be resolved by spending cuts or tax increases alone. Both military and health care spending should be on the cutting table. So should “tax expenditures,” the scores of popular but costly tax breaks for individuals and corporations, including the mortgage-interest deduction. And Social Security’s finances require a long-term fix.

Nothing of the sort is before the lame-duck session of Congress that resumes this week. Instead, the parties and Mr. Obama are in effect fighting over how much to add to the long-term debt: Democrats want to extend the expiring Bush-era tax cuts except for rates in the highest income brackets, at a projected 10-year cost of about $3 trillion, while Republicans want to make all the tax rates permanent, which would cost more than $4 trillion  roughly the same amount the Bowles-Simpson plan would save in a decade.

And while Mr. Obama and Congressional Republicans agree that lawmakers should not earmark spending for special projects, a ban would hardly dent the projected annual deficits.

On Monday, the progressive policy organizations Demos, the Economic Policy Institute and the Century Foundation will unveil a liberal blueprint. Their report says that unlike the centrist plans, this version “stabilizes debt as a share of the economy without demanding draconian cuts to national investments or to vital safety net programs.” It would, however, leave the debt at a higher level as a share of the economy than the centrist plans.