Debt Ceiling Deal: Congressional Super Committee Offers Hope For Washington

National Journal:

Already, the smart money in Washington is betting that the congressional super committee created by this week’s debt-ceiling deal to develop a plan for taming the long-term federal deficit will stalemate along party lines and fail.

Read the whole story: National Journal

Comments

[Derek Knudsen]

02:43 PM on 08/08/2011

The new Congressional "Super Committee" will be doa and become yet another show of no go! They're starting off on the wrong foot, debt isn't the U.S.'s problem, unemployment is. Zero unemployment should be the Committee's agenda. With zero unemployment debt will be taken care of with millions of new tax payers :-)

[madame48]

05:20 PM on 08/05/2011

how about Congress just DOES their jobs that they are paid 8 times what most of us make for...don't want to do the job? resign and let middle class folks who realize we are in a depression run things

[balthus]

06:49 PM on 08/09/2011

Vote the Tea Party nutjobs out - they were the ones who refused any increase in taxes on the rich, causing the stalemate - and maybe progress could be made. But don't blame both sides of Congress, the Dems bent over and grabbed their ankles and Repubs still wouldn't compromise.

[fourex]

01:55 PM on 08/05/2011

There will be nothing 'super' about the committee.

[WalterJesseSmith]

09:40 AM on 08/05/2011

I was considering reading the article until I read that line about "the smart money in Washington..."

There is no such thing as 'smart money in Washington, D. C.' Almost all the money there is Madison-Avenue designer corruption funding. The corruption funding grows with every piece of legislation, with almost every court ruling, with every policy formulation.

Washington, D. C., is so beyond redemption that the only way to breathe life back into
the USA is to do so from the neighborhoods first. Until we all learn the old civic republican
traditions (long ago abandoned by the Republican Party as an obstacle to their pieces of
the corruption pies), there will be no renewal of democracy or of the republican ideals of
citizen-controlled government. Until we learn to listen to every one of our neighbors, and
help them recover their civic dignity by also listening to every one else in our neighborhood,
there will be no democracy.

Corruption controls our government, inside and out, and at the current
rate of corruption growth, we may already be too late to reverse that rot before the nation
implodes with overwhelming national disgust at the bipartisan sleaze parades. Even Leon Panetta, who abandoned the Republican sleaze industry when Nixon was its leader, now
pleads for infinite imperial dollars for the Pentagon's never-ending war mongering machinery.

[behindEnemyLines]

09:29 AM on 08/05/2011

The left is always complaining and crying about their desire to go back to Clin ton era tax rates yet they refuse to agree to Clin ton era spending levels. The final budget Clin ton signed into law, when the budget was "balanced" came in at 1.9 trillion dollars. Adjusted for inflation that's 2.57 trillion today. When the left agrees to those spending level then we can talk about bringing back Clin ton era tax rates.

[seiedvard]

09:38 AM on 08/05/2011

You are actually quite wrong, you seem to leave out all of the spending brought forth by the Bush Administration
I believe that we all would love to eliminate those, the wars, homeland security department, faith based initiatives, Big Pharma
How much money was given to Halibuton or Blackwater?
How much does it cost to keep Gitmo open for business
I am all for rolling back to the Clinton era budget

[behindEnemyLines]

10:01 AM on 08/05/2011

im not leaving out Bush spending but you however are leaving out the fact that Obama increased the federal budget by 800 billion in FY 2010. You also failed to mention that Obama has continued both wars. Obama authorized nearly a trillion dollar stimulus that failed. QE1, QE2. 60 billion to GM.

So while Bush raised federal spending by WAY to much Obama has doubled down on that policy. So, thats where we are today. My point stands. When the left agrees to go back to Clin ton era spending then we can talk about Clin ton era tax rates. Compromise remember.....

[WalterJesseSmith]

09:48 AM on 08/05/2011

Well, your label speaks intelligently and coherently; it suggests you are a happy
Coco-Cola "conservative."

As far as "the left" is concerned, forget about it. Obama leads the D party to the right
of the Tea Party on "spending cuts," so much so, the Republicans (certainly no lefties there)
refused to cut that much. Why not preach to the Republicans about their wimpy budget-
cutting?

What would you most like to see the nation conserve? Is budget cutting the best, the only, or just the only thought of way to conserve that?

If you are concerned about all the spending, why? Do you consider Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the pseudo "defense" spending departments, or what as the wrong spending?

Or are you just repeating a tired and empty protest against "spending" on anything?

I have listened to (read) your comments. Are you listening/reading these or others?

[behindEnemyLines]

10:12 AM on 08/05/2011

Funny how you on the left are suddenly so against what Clin ton did. You guys tout how great things were under Clin ton, how the budget was balanced, how we had a surplus. However, when it is explained to you how that was accomplished you shy away and completely change your tune. Apparently, Clin ton spending levels were regressive to you. Things apparently were not all that great after all huh?

You can repeal every single on of the Bush tax cuts and you still will not balance the budget. The cost of the tax cuyts were estimated to be 3.7 trillion over ten years. We have a 1.6 trillion dollar deficit. You would have to raise taxes ON EVERYONE not just the "rich." As a matter of fact of the 3.7 trillion the tax cuts cost only 700 billion of that is the cost of cutting taxes on the "rich."  Thats 70 billion a year.

Without going back to spending levels of 2000 you will NEVER balance the budget and stop adding to our 14.3 trillion dollar debt. Those are facts!

[Gaylord P Farqua]

09:25 AM on 08/05/2011

Since the Turtle McConnell and Mr. Satisfied Boehner have publicly stated that will not appoint any member of this charade who will "even" consider" revenue of any form, there is no point in wasting the People's time convening. Committees created to study anything are of no value if the members are pre-disposed to an outcome before even meeting. The Tea Party/gop has no intention of solving anything. Their victory during the last fabricated crisis gave them to MO for all questions to come. Oppose, reject and threaten then, just wait until the Democrats fold. Just like the behavior of their pals and sponsors in the Insurance Empire. Let's just go to the trigger and show the American people in dollars and cents where the Tea Party/gop wants to cut and who they are protecting, as if we didn't know. A massive victory by Democrats and great independents like Senator Sanders is the only salvation for the people. We are already sliding into "serfdom" at minimum wage and the fast food jobs are drying up.

[dnno1]

09:40 AM on 08/05/2011

I think lobby from the defense industral complex and the medical/pharmaceutical industry will make sure a the right folks are on the committee. What will happen in the end is that the tax rate will be lowered without some of the loopholes and tax breaks that are customarily given.

[cabinetmaker]

08:10 AM on 08/05/2011

dems: some hope remains

LOL is all you can do when it comes to 0

[theoriginalmatt]

07:44 AM on 08/05/2011

There is absolutely no hope. The course of events is largely predetermined. McConnell and Boehner have both already given their assurances to Grover Norquist that the people the Republicans appoint to the Supercongress will not give ground on revenue. The most likely scenario is that there will be a stalemate and the supercongress will fail. That being the case, the triggers go into effect and spending is cut. Then, Republicans in congress will figure out a way to enact legislation that reverses the defense cuts.

[AmericanDream RIP]

05:13 PM on 08/05/2011

Possible GOP just-trim-the-fat defense spending cuts:

Gut the GI bill
Close all commisaries on base
Refuse to allow spouses/children to reside on base
Soldiers to pay their own airline fares to return home from the battlefield
Make GI's pay for their own uniforms & weapons
Cancel current and future military healthcare
Close all VA hospitals
Cancel all survivor's benefits
Turn Arlington into prime real estate

[RRB09]

06:31 AM on 08/05/2011

So let me get this straight ok?We have a pool of clowns who have already proven incapable of solving the obvious. Out of that pool we are going to pull the "elite" so they can solve the obvious?
As usual, their answer is more government.

[mistahshow]

06:04 AM on 08/05/2011

What is needed is a non partisan committee as politicians are incapable of not injecting politics into anything

[jws2346]

04:59 AM on 08/05/2011

Errr..., let me get this straight? The regular Congress couldn't get their ducks in a row so they decided to make a Super Congress out of the same larger body of incompetents that couldn't get their ducks in a row? Oh yeah, the American people are doing the right thing by paying outrageous salaries and benefits to the larger body of incompetents so they can make a smaller body of incompetents? All that chit is in the US Constitution?

[grouseless54]

04:03 AM on 08/05/2011

We should have a little chimney sticking out somewhere on the capital dome. We can all stand around out front waiting the black smoke to change to white smoke. That way we'll know when there's a deal or not.
I love the idea that self preservation is supposed to be meaningful to a group of people who think their future jobs are dependent on destroying the institutions they work in. If your mission is to destroy the place you "work", as a principle of self-interest, nothing you're involved in is ever going to be a success.

[cccoyote]

12:41 AM on 08/05/2011

The 12 paid sh.ills will do wonders for their string pullers.
As for the nation and it's citizens - not much.

[Left Hook]

12:12 AM on 08/05/2011

Not to worry - This committe will get jammed by the Norquist vigilantes and rabid teapugliecons and the dems will fold like cheap lawn chairs and guess who gets screwed like a Warren Jeff's FLDS 12-year old while others look on? Why all the rest of us normal Americans of course...

[Rich914]

11:16 PM on 08/04/2011

If the Super Congress can't do it, then maybe the Super Duper Congress can.

[seiedvard]

09:43 AM on 08/05/2011

and then, the dictator, I mean the next president, if he is a republican of course