Supercommittee fails, spending limits kick in

[John Adams]

WASHINGTON — Failure by Congress' debt-cutting supercommittee to recommend $1.2 trillion in savings by Wednesday is supposed to automatically trigger spending cuts in the same amount to accomplish that job.

 

But the same legislators who concocted that budgetary booby trap just four months ago could end up spending the 2012 election year and beyond battling over defusing it.

 

Sens. JohnMcCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., say they are writing legislation to prevent what they say would be devastating cuts to the military. House Republicans are exploring a similar move. Democrats maintain they won't let domestic programs be the sole source of savings.

 

In the face of those efforts, President Barack Obama has told the debt panel's cochairmen that he "will not accept any measure that attempts to turn off the automatic cut trigger," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters last week.The leaders of both parties in the House and Senate have expressed similar sentiments — seemingly making any attempt to restore the money futile.

"Yes, I would feel bound by it," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said recently of the automatic cuts. "It was part of the agreement."

 

 

!@#$ these people. At least Obama and Boehner seem to get it.

 

http://www.freep.com...ebt-panel-fails

Edited November 21, 2011 by John Adams

[IDBillzFan]

Actually, Obama got precisely what he wanted, and that makes Boehner an idiot. How stupid do you have to be to agree to the idea that six people hand-picked from each side will try to address the defifict before Thanksgiving, and if they fail, there will be massive cuts to the military? Apparently you only need to be Boehner-stupid.

 

Obama now has his 2012 narrative: the GOP refuses to cut military spending AND refuses to raise taxes on millionaires making over $200K a year, so the only way to address the deficit is to put the Democrats in control of the House, Senate and WH next year so we can get the job done without them standing in our way.

 

Political leaders lead. Everyone else diverts the public's attention with moronic logic.

[B-Man]

Where in the world is Obama?

By Judd Gregg - 11/21/11 05:15 AM ET

 

The president was in Hawaii while the supercommittee hit stall speed. What is new about this? Very little.

 

Throughout his term, President Obama has avoided leading on the issue of fiscal responsibility. He walked away from his own commission, the one led by former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) and former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, when he found its report filled with inconvenient choices.

 

Now in a week when leadership is needed to push this critical committee to do something big and bring the nations fiscal house back into order, the president once again disappears. It causes one to wonder, why?

 

The general consensus is that neither he nor the people around him feel there is a great upside to doing something that involves making so many difficult decisions to straighten out our nations fiscal future.

 

Like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), he sees no real need to move in this direction. After all, any significant action would require fixing Social Security; overhauling taxes; returning to healthcare reform, especially as it affects Medicare and Medicaid; and, most importantly, agreeing not just to slow growth of the federal government but in fact to reduce it.

 

 

 

The Hill

 

 

No Problem....................................................Lets name a "Super-Duper" Committee !!!

.

Edited November 21, 2011 by B-Man

[B-Man]

The Supercommittee’s Emblematic Failure

November 21, 2011 3:05 P.M. By Adam Hasner (GOP candidate for the Senate in Florida

 

FTA:

 

The easiest way to explain what is wrong with Washington would be to tell the story of the supercommittee. After years of fiscal irresponsibility by both major parties and many presidents — including the current occupant of the White House, whose reckless multi-trillion-dollar spending spree has endangered our national security — the best they could do was form another committee. Instead of taking the steps necessary to cut spending and fix our tax code, both parties kicked the can down the road and delayed the inevitable.

 

The supercommittee is a microcosm of Washington. Rather than do the work they were elected to do, Congress punted and left the responsibility in the hands of twelve of their colleagues, while the rest of them sat and waited. Thanks to this, we are now facing either $600 billion in cuts to defense or a minimum $300 billion tax hike.

 

Conventional wisdom inside the Beltway believed that a grand bargain could be reached if the members were removed from the standard political process. They were wrong. Never underestimate the ability of twelve members of Congress to get absolutely nothing accomplished, outside of raising taxes and growing the government.

 

{snip}

 

But with the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as the supercommittee co-chair, it was clear from the start we were never going to see any serious spending-reform proposals from the Democrats.

 

The actions we need to take are not state secrets. We should close tax loopholes and eliminate special-interest deductions, and do so in the context of lowering overall tax rates to reduce compliance costs and make America more competitive. Our main goal has to be economic growth. This will not happen until we cut spending and remove the bureaucratic barriers preventing businesses from expanding and hiring new employees.

 

There has never been a time in American history when the need for overhauling our tax code and making dramatic spending cuts was more obvious. Watching our national debt breach $15 trillion should have been a wakeup call to both Republicans and Democrats, but the failure of the supercommittee is just more proof that the process in Washington is broken.

 

The supercommittee was successful in one respect. It once again highlighted how Washington problems can’t be fixed by the same Washington insiders who helped create them in the first place. More than ever, we need leaders willing to make the tough decisions — decisions that may not be politically popular now but ones that are needed to save the country in the long-term

 

National Review

 

.

[Dante]

This super committee is a sham from the start anyway. 15 trillion in debt now and 1.2 trillion over 10 years is supposed to be significant? These boneheads can't even agree on that. It's just to give the appearance that a effort is being made and to have someone to blame later.

 

Only part of the article that was worth anything.

 

"I have no doubt that there will be efforts to turn it off," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "Never underestimate the willingness of politicians to try to avoid making some of the hard choices."

[IDBillzFan]

Gee, who could have seen this coming? I'm so surprised by this. I'm sure the rest of you are as well.

 

Obama rips GOP for supercommittee failure

By Jonathan Easley

 

President Obama placed blame for the supercommittee’s failure squarely on Republicans Monday, and said he would veto any attempt to circumvent the automatic cuts that have been triggered.

 

Speaking shortly after the deficit reduction committee announced it had failed to reach an agreement on a deficit reduction deal, Obama said too many Republicans refused to “listen to the voices of reason” that were calling for a compromise.

Link

[UConn James]

Actually, Obama got precisely what he wanted, and that makes Boehner an idiot. How stupid do you have to be to agree to the idea that six people hand-picked from each side will try to address the defifict before Thanksgiving, and if they fail, there will be massive cuts to the military? Apparently you only need to be Boehner-stupid.

 

Obama now has his 2012 narrative: the GOP refuses to cut military spending AND refuses to raise taxes on millionaires making over $200K a year, so the only way to address the deficit is to put the Democrats in control of the House, Senate and WH next year so we can get the job done without them standing in our way.

 

Political leaders lead. Everyone else diverts the public's attention with moronic logic.

 

Nice touch of subtle Obama-logic.

 

How anyone thought that a group of 12 could do what two couldn't is beyond me. So, if the Congresscritters turn the tap back on and cancel out the $1.2T in across-the-boards, what we got was a debt ceiling increase and a lot of non-consequential huff on how & who should pay off the federal credit card.

 

The GOP House was ready and willing to cut, cap and balance. The Democrat Senate stopped this attempt at fiscal sanity in its tracks.

 

It may be a narrative for 2012, but the people who will decide the election now know exactly what Obama's goals are. Namely, bankrupt America and make the people servile/dependent on gov't handouts that Democrats will promise with zeal. TAX & SPEND, railroad job-killing mandates through Congress, then TAX & SPEND MORE.

[DC Tom]

 

The GOP House was ready and willing to cut, cap and balance.

 

 

Yeah...but that only works for greenhouse gasses. Not money.

[Koko78]

Nice touch of subtle Obama-logic.

 

How anyone thought that a group of 12 could do what two couldn't is beyond me. So, if the Congresscritters turn the tap back on and cancel out the $1.2T in across-the-boards, what we got was a debt ceiling increase and a lot of non-consequential huff on how & who should pay off the federal credit card.

 

The GOP House was ready and willing to cut, cap and balance. The Democrat Senate stopped this attempt at fiscal sanity in its tracks.

 

It may be a narrative for 2012, but the people who will decide the election now know exactly what Obama's goals are. Namely, bankrupt America and make the people servile/dependent on gov't handouts that Democrats will promise with zeal. TAX & SPEND, railroad job-killing mandates through Congress, then TAX & SPEND MORE.

 

How can you claim Obama pushed through job-killing mandates, when his own charts and graphs clearly show that he created or saved millions of fictional jobs in fictional Congressional districts throughout the 57 states?!?

[Dave_In_Norfolk]

It's only going to get worse with health care costs. All those old voters retiring now. Raise those taxes. Raise them! It's the only real solution.

[IDBillzFan]

It's only going to get worse with health care costs. All those old voters retiring now. Raise those taxes. Raise them! It's the only real solution.

If you're plan is to just be a troll, at least put some effort into it. Otherwise it's just embarrassing.

[B-Large]

Actually, Obama got precisely what he wanted, and that makes Boehner an idiot. How stupid do you have to be to agree to the idea that six people hand-picked from each side will try to address the defifict before Thanksgiving, and if they fail, there will be massive cuts to the military? Apparently you only need to be Boehner-stupid.

 

Obama now has his 2012 narrative: the GOP refuses to cut military spending AND refuses to raise taxes on millionaires making over $200K a year, so the only way to address the deficit is to put the Democrats in control of the House, Senate and WH next year so we can get the job done without them standing in our way.

 

Political leaders lead. Everyone else diverts the public's attention with moronic logic.

 

So there are cuts being made to the US global military? Good start, we haven't been paying for our wars or war department escalation over the last decade.... Who'd a thought we would be able to accomplish something, basically by failing a it?

 

We don't need to be the Earth police, time to ratchet down.... Nobody wants to pay for it anyway....

[drinkTHEkoolaid]

The super committee just represents the growing gap in rigid ideological differences between the left and right which is a microcosm of American public in general. Neither side is willing to give and this is going to set the stage for some very polarizing 2012 elections. Look at this board everyone already has their views and its highly unlikely they are going to be changed by posters with opposite viewpoints only reenforced by posters you ideologicaly agree with. I am actually growing concerned with how large a gap there is in this country between the 2 diametrically opposed groups and where its going to end up.

[Wacka]

The Hill

 

 

No Problem....................................................Lets name a "Super-Duper" Committee !!!

.

 

 

Then we can get Joey to do PR for them:

 

"We're going to cut not 500 Billion, ... not 1 Trillion, but 1.5 Trillion dollars!"

[3rdnlng]

It's only going to get worse with health care costs. All those old voters retiring now. Raise those taxes. Raise them! It's the only real solution.

 

 

I bet if you had a job you wouldn't say that.

[B-Man]

Those who can do.

Those who can’t form a supercommittee.

Those who can’t produce a majority vote in a supercommittee sequester.

Those who can’t even sequester are telling the world something profound about American inertia.

 

The “automatic” sequestration cuts would over the course of ten years reduce US public debt by only $153 billion. Which boils down to about a month’s worth of the current federal deficit.

 

Yet even slashing a pimple’s worth of borrowing out of the great oozing mountain of pustules will prove too much for Washington.

 

 

Mark Steyn

 

 

.

[John Adams]

The cuts automatically kick in, well kind of.

 

There has to be 1.2T cut over 10 years. So it can be backloaded. And god knows what games will be played in order to make things look like cuts that aren't.

 

Amazing that Obama and Boehner were within days of cutting 3-4T from the deficit, then both their bases freaked out and this makeshift cluster-eff 1.2T committee/cut idea came up.

 

And despite the credit downgrade, the country running into its debt ceiling, that the committee could not show America that it could act like adults in a time of crisis--despite all that--now they are looking to ignore the crisis again and not let even this 1.2T of cuts kick in. Shame on anyone opposing these cuts being made. These cuts are the tip of an iceberg of necessary spending cuts. Fighting these makes them all look like the selfish asses they all are.

 

Expect another credit downgrade. A deserved credit downgrade.

 

[meazza]

The cuts automatically kick in, well kind of.

 

There has to be 1.2T cut over 10 years. So it can be backloaded. And god knows what games will be played in order to make things look like cuts that aren't.

 

Amazing that Obama and Boehner were within days of cutting 3-4T from the deficit, then both their bases freaked out and this makeshift cluster-eff 1.2T committee/cut idea came up.

 

And despite the credit downgrade, the country running into its debt ceiling, that the committee could not show America that it could act like adults in a time of crisis--despite all that--now they are looking to ignore the crisis again and not let even this 1.2T of cuts kick in. Shame on anyone opposing these cuts being made. These cuts are the tip of an iceberg of necessary spending cuts. Fighting these makes them all look like the selfish asses they all are.

 

Expect another credit downgrade. A deserved credit downgrade.

 

And what will be the impact of a credit downgrade? The 10 year hitting 1.5%?

[Adam]

The Hill

 

 

No Problem....................................................Lets name a "Super-Duper" Committee !!!

.

Super Duper went out of business......

 

Why not

1. let the "Bush" tax cuts expire

 

2. consolidate Medicare/Social Security and put it on a sliding scale, with people who made the most getting fewer benefits, and then subtract from those who received a certain amount of unemployment benefits

 

3. End the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, bring the troops back, and slash defense spending by as close to 50% as possible- redundancies WILL NOT cover this cut, but efficiency will lessen the blow.

 

4. Raise taxes slightly across the board.

 

5. Most importantly- on all of the above, put a trigger mechanism, which decreases the severity of each, when the economy reaches certain levels.

 

Decreasing the deficit and getting the economy rolling again is going to hurt- it is high time that both sides accept that fact.

Edited November 22, 2011 by Adam

[John Adams]

2. consolidate Medicare/Social Security and put it on a sliding scale, with people who made the most getting fewer benefits, and then subtract from those who received a certain amount of unemployment benefits

 

 

Regarding social security, I pay a TON more into it on the premise that I will get more out later. Why should I pay more in AND get less out? What's the point of that?