(FORTUNE Magazine) – First, Treasury Secretary James A. Baker told Congress that tax increases were not necessary to shrink the U.S. budget deficit. The next day Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan said they were. He suggested that Congress consider a 15-cents-a-gallon hike in gasoline taxes, which besides raising revenue would promote energy conservation. Deficit reduction talk is not likely to turn into action until the next President takes over. To do some thinking between now and then, Congress has formed a National Economic Commission. The bipartisan panel has until next March to offer the White House and Congress a way out of deficits. The Democratic commission members, chosen by House and Senate leaders, are: House Budget Committee Chairman William Gray, New York investment banker Felix Rohatyn, Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland, former Democratic National Committee chairman Robert Strauss, and New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. President Reagan and congressional GOP / leaders appointed Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, Representative Bill Frenzel of Minnesota, former Transportation Secretary Drew Lewis, former Defense Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Caspar Weinberger, and Dean Kleckner, president of the American Farm Bureau. In November the president-elect can name two more members. At least one previous blue-ribbon panel successfully addressed an almost-as- knotty problem: the National Commission on Social Security Reform, created in 1981. A grateful Congress accepted the panel's recommendations to rescue the ailing Social Security system with increased payroll taxes. Says Steve Bell, head of Salomon Brothers' Washington office: ''This committee gives political cover to the next President so he can make some hard decisions.'' Let's hope he will.