Posted on 11/20/2011 8:18:43 PM PST by Qbert
With the Washington Post reporting – and Senator Jon Kyl confirming – that there’s a general sense of malaise surrounding budget deal negotiations, the end may be in sight. Unfortunately, the light at the end of the tunnel is looking more and more like it’s the headlight of an oncoming train.
The congressional committee tasked with reducing the federal deficit is poised to admit defeat as soon as Monday, and its unfinished business will set up a year-end battle over emergency jobless benefits and an expiring payroll tax holiday.Those provisions are among a host of measures set to lapse at the end of December. During nearly three months of negotiations, the “supercommittee” had been weighing whether to extend at least some of them as part of a broader plan to shave a minimum of $1.2 trillion over the next decade.
The mere fact of failure, should it occur, probably won’t come as a shock to most observers. (Our friends at Outside the Beltway, in fact, rather blandly call it “An Unsurprising Failure.”) But from all of these interviews and a sampling of the talking heads this weekend, what was more startling to me was an indication that a lot of these folks really never wanted the committee to succeed in the first place. But why? A few observations follow.
From the Left side of the aisle, there does seem to be one possible answer which led me to one of those forehead slapping, “I coulda’ had a V-8″ moments. I was watching a panel of entirely left wing pundits on MSNBC this morning, two of whom came out without prevarication and said they were openly hoping the group would fail to meet the deadline. The reason? Because then the sequestration would kick in and it leaves entitlement programs essentially untouched while making deep cuts in the military. And as one noted, such cuts to the military are, “long overdue.” Further, they pointed out that failure would result in the end of the Bush era tax cuts which, as one of them put it, “would solve most of our problems right there.”
I’ve long since gotten over being shocked at hearing things like this, and in some ways it was rather refreshing to hear it stated so openly and honestly. Of course, it’s also disastrously wrong as far as I can tell, but at least it’s honest.
But there have been plenty on the Right who have adopted a hang dog attitude about the work the committee is attempting as well. The general consensus seems to be that if there were to be a deal, in order to get any of the Democrats on board it was going to involve massive tax increases. Better to give up and head to sequester rather than give in on that, goes this line of thinking.
But was the entire thing a dog and pony show with no real effect except for 2012 political positioning? The other chatter, including some of the comments from John Kerry, is that none of the threatened “draconian cuts” from the original deal will happen anyway. Remember… they don’t take place until 2013. And at least according to some, that gives Congress an entire year to get together and repeal that decision. And if that happens, you may wind up with tax cuts expiring, no measurable cuts in spending, and no significant change in course in terms of basic government theory. Game.. set.. match.
So.. was this all just for show?
a super failure of the super committee that was a super stupid idea in the first place
The libs don’t think it’s a failure. This is exactly what they wanted to happen.
They get their massive defense cuts.
This morning, Sen. Kerry on MTP and Rep. Xavier Becerra on FNS used the term ‘everything is on the table’.
Rep. Xavier Becerra basically said the Dems are content with allowing the Super Committee to default to the August agreement, unless they can come up with a better plan [translation: more taxes, more spending].
The Dems will use the failure of the Super Committee the same way they are using the failure of the Jobs Bill: To place the blame on the obstructionist Republicans are the cause of the failure.
"The libs don’t think it’s a failure. This is exactly what they wanted to happen.
They get their massive defense cuts."
Yep. And the Establishment Repubs appear to have gone right along with the scheme- either that, or they truly are stupid.
This whole fiasco was planned to fail. The cuckolds and worthless people that are the majority in Congress wouldn’t have it any other way. The only guy who seems genuinely concerned about the condition of the US economy is Toomey. The rest just don’t want to ruffle any feathers. If we can’t get more sensible people like Toomey in this go round, we are doomed.
"The only guy who seems genuinely concerned about the condition of the US economy is Toomey. The rest just don’t want to ruffle any feathers. If we can’t get more sensible people like Toomey in this go round, we are doomed."
Toomey deeply disappointed me with his tax hike proposal. I agree that he truly cares about the economy, and I know he wanted to try to prevent a larger tax increase when the Bush rates expire- but I think he played his cards very poorly here.
The GOP should make one last offer then pass it as a bill in the House make the Senate responsible for cuts or credit rating downgrade,
One revenue measure could be 10% flat tax on repatriated money. Enhanced revenue with a tax cut.
Did anyone with a pulse really expect something from this charade?
With a pulse? Yes. With at least one functioning brain cell? No.
Boehner should be ashamed of this fool’s bargain with the dark side.
How else can you play them when everyone around the table is a crook. This whole thing is disgusting. Hard decisions need to be made and everyone acts like things are business as usual. If we don’t get this under control fast, the European meltdown will take us down too. It is time to get ahead of this thing.
Pretty much, Congress needed to figure out a way of raising the debt ceiling without taking responsibility for raising the debt ceiling. The solution? A super committee that doesn’t do a damn thing, defaulting to cuts that might or might now happen.
might or might not happen ..... ooops
You can’t just blame Boehner; but the entire concept is extra-constitutional.
“How else can you play them when everyone around the table is a crook.”
We could all see back in August that this was coming- the Repubs were going to get played because it was set up that way.
If failure was inevitable then, why not take the case to the American people at least, instead of secretive, backroom Obamacare-esque dealing? They don’t want massive tax hikes in a feeble economy.
Recently while the democrats controlled both houses, there was no budget passed for more than a year, at least. I’m not even sure they even proposed one. But it is all the republicans fault as they tell it. And now it is fixed so no budget will kick in until after the coming elections.
We are so screwed.
These morons think they are statesmen, instead of Party hacks.
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