As Ezra Klein pointed out, the fiscal commission has not made any recommendations. Instead, what we have are a set of sometimes-serious, sometimes-blowhard recommendations from the commission's co-chairs. Sensible (or maybe obviously discrediting if otherwise): no call for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which has medical cost-control measures that limits the otherwise-disastrous deficits in the long-term future. Or, to take another case, on the one hand, there is a reasonable liberal argument (in addition to an obvious conservative argument) to be made on behalf of a stable taxation structure that is somewhat regressive, if the spending patterns are progressive. (This is the usual argument for a value-added tax structure.) But that's undermined immediately by arbitrary suggested caps on revenues and spending as a proportion of GDP. Among other reasons why such arbitrary caps are blatantly foolish: GDP is not a stable figure, and in a recession such caps will impose draconian spending cuts precisely at a time when (as now) a liquidity trap requires fiscal stimulus. So while I could imagine Alan Simpson proposing it, the agreement by Erskine Bowles looks to be primarily a matter of posturing. (It could also be posturing by Simpson, but I'm more bewildered by Bowles' agreement.)
Then there are the simply-bewildering proposals such as a reduction in our national negative income tax policy (more generally known as the Earned Income Tax Credit) or the reduction in our national policy encouraging college students to fund their own education (also known as interest subsidies during enrollment). Bowles was in the White House during the 1990s expansion of the EITC and the start of direct student loan programs, so I guess he has now decided he and Bill Clinton were dead wrong in pushing those policies. I wish he would confess publicly to his deep errors, but maybe he doesn't really think he was wrong in the 1990s; he just has to suggest these foolish changes to look tough. In neither case do those programs contribute nearly as much to the federal deficit as a large number of other programs. But the list is good Very Serious People theater.
Alternatives? Try the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget's Budget Simulator; I was able to get estimated federal debt down to 53% of GDP in the 2010-2018 simulation without anything that smacked of a gimmick in the Bowles-Simpson recommendations. (I know there's another simulation tool online but I couldn't find it last night. The CRFB's Peterson-Pew Commission recommendations have been slammed by the Economic Policy Institute, so it's not as if I am relying on dramatically liberal think-tanks.)