Supercommittee Not So Super - Fails to Reach A Deficit Reduction Agreement

Congress' Supercommittee has failed to reach an agreement over how to cut $1.2 trillion from the U.S. budget deficit. Co-chairs of the supercommittee, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray and Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling, in joint statement said, “Despite our inability to bridge the committee's significant differences, we end this process united in our belief that the nation's fiscal crisis must be addressed and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve.”

According to law which created this "secretive" 12 person 'Supercommittee" which abrogated the responsibility and authority of the other 423 members of Congress, the committee's failure to reach an agreement on cutting $1.2 trillion means that the government "may" face an across-the-board $1.2 trillion cut with the major portion coming from the DOD in 2013 (deliberately timed for after the 2012 elections).

According to a Washington Times article yesterday before today's the formal announcement of the committee to reach agreement, "Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the panel’s Democratic co-chairwoman, said Republican insistence on extending the expiring Bush-era tax cuts has been a deal-breaker. 'That line in the sand, we haven’t seen any Republicans willing to cross yet.'  . . .  Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican and deficit panel member, said. . . ' [O]n the [Democratic] side, there was an insistence that we have a trillion-dollar tax increase. There was an unwillingness to cut any kind of spending at all unless there was a huge tax increase.'"  Sen. Jon  Jon Kyl of Arizona, a Republican supercommittee member is quoted “Our Democratic friends are unable to cut even a dollar in spending without saying it has to be accompanied by tax increases,” he said. “I think that tells you all you need to know about our runaway spending.”

This morning, Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson  response to the pending supercommittee failure  urged Congress to simply accept the sequestration option under the August debt deal:"Given the alternatives, which were phony spending cuts and higher taxes on producers and job creators, sequestration is by far the better deal.  There should be no discussion of revenue reform until there are actual spending cuts on the table.  All we see now are reductions in the growth of spending.  What a farce.

"Even under sequestration, the budget will still increase every single year from 2013 through 2021, albeit at a slightly slower rate.  That is, if it even goes into effect.  The only year that matters is 2012, when no changes in spending are slated.  By the time the 2013 fiscal year rolls around, does anyone expect that even the modest reductions in the growth rate of spending under sequestration will ever be implemented?

"The only thing that has changed under this fiasco is that the national debt ceiling was increased without any real concessions.  That's more borrowing, more spending, and no reform.  This is not what the American people voted for in 2010."Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell responded to the Supercommittee's failing to reach agreement:“With this administration's out-of-control federal spending over the past three years, unemployment stuck at 9 percent, and a $15 trillion debt which grows daily, we felt it was necessary to create this extraordinary mechanism to reduce spending  and make needed changes. Republicans viewed this committee as a golden opportunity to change the direction of the nation's fiscal trajectory and create a better environment for job growth. This was reflected in the seriousness of our appointees, and it was reflected in two Republican proposals that were designed to attract Democratic support.

“While Democrats insisted on a trillion-dollar tax hike and hundreds of billions of dollars in new stimulus spending, Republicans focused on pro-growth tax reform, protecting Medicare and Medicaid, and reducing Washington spending. Crucially, Republicans also proposed reducing government benefits to the wealthiest Americans. In our view, the best way to ensure that Washington doesn’t waste more taxpayer money is to give less of it away to those who don't need it--not to take more from taxpayers and hope for the best. If Democrats were more concerned about the deficit than in making government bigger, they would embrace proposals like this, too.

“In the end, an agreement proved impossible not because Republicans were unwilling to compromise, but because Democrats would not accept any proposal that did not expand the size and scope of government or punish job creators. This fact was underscored in the final hours of negotiations by their refusal to accept even a basic package of spending cuts and revenue that they had already agreed to during previous debt-limit negotiations—unless they were accompanied by a tax hike on the very people Americans are counting on to create the jobs we desperately need. Not even a proposal to get rid of a tax deduction for corporate jet owners, something Democrats had  previously eyed as a major prize, was enough to move them off their puzzling insistence on taxing job creators in the middle of a jobs crisis.

“My main criteria for selecting members to this committee was to identify serious, constructive senators who are interested in achieving a result that helps to get our nation’s fiscal house in order. Sens. Kyl, Toomey and Portman lived up to that challenge. I would like to thank them, and the members and staff of the committee who devoted so much time and effort to finding a solution.

“While we'll still reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion, much more needs to be done. And we’ll continue our efforts to reduce the size of Washington, reform and protect the entitlement system for future generations, and create a better environment for job growth.”Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, said today:“All of us had hoped that the supercommittee would succeed in producing the sound, long-term plan this country desperately needs. But in order to properly understand why they did not, we must recognize the strategic decision made by the president, and Senate Majority Leader Reid, at the beginning of the year.

The budget process began with the submission of the president’s budget plan. Analysis of that plan quickly revealed that the president’s $1.6 trillion tax increase proved totally inadequate to offset the enormous levels of new spending that would occur. Under this plan, over ten years, we would accumulate another $13 trillion in debt, never produce a single deficit less than $748 billion, produce a deficit in the tenth year of $1.2 trillion, and leave entitlement programs like Medicare in grave financial peril.

For this, the president was widely and correctly rebuked.

Next, the newly-elected House Republicans—dispatched by voters to restrain Washington’s big spenders—introduced and passed a budget plan as required by law. It was a detailed, honest, and concrete plan to put our nation on a sound footing.

The Senate Democrat majority then made a decision: Rather than introduce a plan of their own, they chose to ignore the law and craft no budget at all. Majority Leader Reid even said it would be ‘foolish’ to have a budget. After the president’s disastrous budget rollout, Democrat leaders knew their rhetoric would not hold up on paper—that the public would not accept the level of spending, taxing, and borrowing their fiscal vision requires. It was simply easier to avoid accountability.

From that point forward, the president and Senate Democrats did everything possible to avoid having to develop a concrete plan to address this nation’s most dire long-term challenges. The president ignored three consecutive Medicare funding warnings—even though this trigger, by law, requires him to submit a plan to resolve Medicare’s fiscal imbalance within 15 days of submitting his budget. They left the serious policy playing field to fight on the political one, even as America’s balance sheet tipped us closer in the direction of Greece. Should America go down that path, those with the fewest resources, the poorest among us, would be hurt the most; there is nothing compassionate about economic disaster.

A series of secret meetings ensued—meetings of the Gang of Six, talks with the vice president at the Blair House, talks with the president at the White House, and, most recently, the supercommittee. These secret meetings disengaged the congressional process and prevented the serious national and legislative debate we need from taking place. It also allowed Democrats—who still had no real budget plan—to continue avoiding accountability for the fiscal and economic consequences of their political agenda. Indeed, in the first two years of the president’s administration, non-defense discretionary spending surged 24 percent—and by the end of the first three years, gross debt will have increased almost $5 trillion.

Had the president made clear he wanted an agreement, a deal would have been achieved. It seems clear he wanted a campaign issue instead. Rather than confronting the great threat of our time—our $15 trillion debt—the commander-in-chief fled the battlefield. That’s not clever; it’s irresponsible.

Progress must, and will, be achieved. But the kind of deep, systemic, and far-reaching solutions that are ultimately needed won’t be achieved with an 11th hour deal or secret meeting. It will require the full and vigorous participation of the public, the Congress, and the president. It will require a sometimes messy, public, democratic process. And it will require senators and congressmen to cast many public votes and to be held accountable by the American people.”Presidential Candidate Ron Paul tersely said previously: "You don’t get out of the problem of having too much debt by allowing Congress to spend a lot more. It never made any sense to me; it just digs the hole much deeper and then it gets harder for us to get out." Today, he responded, “In fact the Committee merely needs to cut about $120 billion annually from the federal budget over the next 10 years to meet its modest goals, but even this paltry amount has produced hand-wringing and hysteria on Capitol Hill. This is only cutting proposed increases. It has nothing to do with actually cutting anything. This shows how unserious politicians are about our very serious debt problems . . ."

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