Supercommittee Making Little Progress, Lawmakers Warn

Democrats and Republicans on the congressional supercommittee tasked with finding at least $1.2 trillion in federal savings are still far apart on a number of key issues just 10 days before their final recommendation is due, lawmakers warned on Sunday.

"It's been a rollercoaster ride," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), co-chairman of the supercommittee, on CNN's "State of the Union." "We haven't given up hope, but if this was easy, the President and the Speaker of the House would have gotten it done themselves."

"I think we’ve got a ways to go," Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.), who offered Democrats a deal last week that would raise $600 billion in revenue, told Fox News Sunday. "But I hope we can close that gap very quickly."

Toomey said supercommittee negotiations have reached a "difficult point," because Republicans are focusing on cutting entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, while Democrats would prefer to increase new revenue through tax increases on the wealthy. Republicans have offered a plan that includes half a trillion dollars in tax revenues, but Democrats are asking for more.

"We believe that increasing tax revenues could hurt the economy," Hensarling said.

If the bipartisan supercommittee fails to come up with a deal by midnight on November 23, $1.2 trillion in spending cuts will automatically go into effect -- but lawmakers worry that it's not enough.

"If they only do the 1.2 trillion, we're gonna have start over as soon as that's passed and find another 3 or 4 trillion dollars just to buy us five years and the time to work out our problems," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate's "Gang of Six" that offered an $8 trillion deficit reduction package, on "State of the Union."

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said he is "rooting for" for the supercommittee right now, because the stakes are high for the U.S. economy if Congress is unable to come up with a big enough cut.

"We really need to be shooting for more like a $4 trillion deficit reduction plan," he said on CNN. "If there's one thing we've seen from the last few months in Europe, it's when you take these incremental steps, the market comes back and burns you time and again. At some point, we're gonna face the same abyss the Greeks faced and now the Italians are facing, and I believe we need to get ahead of it."

Warner said the only way the supercommittee is going to come up with a deal in time is if Democrats and Republicans put aside their political motivations and meet square in the middle.

"We've gotta be willing to make some folks mad on both ends of the political extreme," he said.

Comments

[sensimilla]

01:39 PM on 11/14/2011

Here is all that is needed to lower the debt:

public financing of ALL civic elections
removal of c0rporate lobbyists from washington
removal of Bush tax breaks
increase of tax rates for uber wealthy with ZERO taxbreaks and loopholes
removal of corporate and farm subsidies
All capital gains taxed as EARNINGS, not at 15%.
Decrease in DOD/MIC funding by 50%

There, the debt is now being paid down. Easy isn't it?

[Wolfsghost]

12:26 PM on 11/14/2011

Well making some folks mad is 100% successful for them. Some folks are indeed angry. They have done an excellent job making people on social security mad, medicare mad, medicade mad, students who need pell grants mad, now they want to put veterans on vouchers so you can add us to the mad list.

[last boomer]

12:11 PM on 11/14/2011

Do not appease hard-liners, isolate them. You cannot compromise with hard-liners, only cave on their terms or go around them on yours. The super committee must fail. Make the Republicans come up with the lop-sided plan of 75% tax increases/ 25% cuts. Of course they won't do that until their unity has been broken and their center can reemerge-then we can get a deal. For now, let them stew in their juices, let em marinate, tenderize. Do not make a deal. Just keep wielding the rhetorical hammer that they want another bailout for the 1%

[Gestas]

12:06 PM on 11/14/2011

You can bet they won't do anything that will make Wall Street mad at them...or the NeoCons.

[glennkromminga]

12:02 PM on 11/14/2011

In an election year what did anyone expect?

[Barbara DeZan]

11:59 AM on 11/14/2011

super committee, my foot.

Just Dems and Repubs facing off....only on a smaller scale.

This was a ridiculous idea to begin with...and it becomes more ridiculous as time passes.

Nothing will be accomplished until the Republican majority in the House has ended...and Dems take a filibuster proof majority in the Senate.

Vote Democrat 2010

[good4you]

11:30 AM on 11/14/2011

Does anyone here understand that the American "rich" have taken the wealth out of America? Why do you think other small nations on this planet are making gains while we suffer? Tax the hell out of them or make them relinquish their American citizenship !!! Go live wherever you've taken your wealth !

[den1953]

11:20 AM on 11/14/2011

Gee after eight years of rubber stamping GW Bush's policies and voting to retain the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy he has been on a roll with the tax payers money, even when he voted for TARP to bail out Wall Street i would think the toughest part for the Republicans is to tell the American people it wasn't their fault!

[lw1]

12:56 PM on 11/14/2011

The gop has somehow spread a virus called bushnesia.

[den1953]

12:09 PM on 11/15/2011

It's called bait and switch and don't blink if they get the White House it will happen again!

[lynn1219]

11:07 AM on 11/14/2011

Republicans: "If we're going to take something away from the rich and entitled, Democrats are going to have to take something away from the poor and middle class". Infantile!!!!

[aviandonn]

10:32 AM on 11/14/2011

For pete's sakes. Let the Bush tax cuts expire. Return the capital gains tax to Reagan levels before Bill Clinton started slashing it. Tax the income of hedge fund managers as actual income. Put pressure on the banks to start lending money and rewriting mortgages to keep people from defaulting. Enact some of the more common sense, low key proposals for addressing entitlements.

That will buy enough breathing room so that Congress doesn't end up panicking and passing predictably bad policies.

All this talk about needing to cut a trillion dollars from the budget NOW, and needing to balance the budget within a certain number of years is just BS. Those figures were just pulled out of thin air mostly by republicans, to flog a financially ignorant public into panicking. Businesses, investors and the stock market don't need to see a plan that balances the budget within ten years or cuts a certain amount of spending or raises a certain amount of taxes. They just need to see a plan that indicates that measures are being taken to stabilize the situation over the long run.

And president Obama should be beaten a stick for not embracing the Erskine Bowles proposals to begin with. That was an act of political cowardice that has a lot to do with our ending up where we are now - with a stupid, ineffectual supercommittee.

[acalm]

10:05 AM on 11/14/2011

The entire idea of a super committee that consists of 12 politicians and tasking them to come up with a solution to this nations budget problems is akin to asking a group of kindergarten students to explain quantum mechanics...before nap time. One is entertaining, cute and funny, the other, not so much.

[JrayTo]

10:00 AM on 11/14/2011

I sense the American Public giving pre-IPO shares to congress from "KISS MY @SS, INC."

[JrayTo]

09:26 AM on 11/14/2011

why does congress these days appear more and more like a syndicate, and less and less like a "congress"?

Congress: Trading stock on inside information? (60 minutes)

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7388130n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox

[jvabevofox]

09:16 AM on 11/14/2011

Try pissing off the 1% for a change!

[aseyeseeit]

09:07 AM on 11/14/2011

Warner says they both have to be prepared to make the extremes angry?
Well there are many in the 99 per cent that are burning mad already-not just the extreme.
It is troubling that the anger of one per cent could be compared to that of 99 per cent in a democracy. Why the center is still to the right and why they are at a stand still. Lose the money vs. lose the vote?

[bjp4321]

10:25 AM on 11/14/2011

My sentiments too. Well said. (f&f)

[lynn1219]

11:03 AM on 11/14/2011

Excellent points. F & F