Not with a bang but a whimper.
Not a surprise, but disheartening on many levels. Let us count the ways:
Dysfunctionality: The deficit reduction committee grew out of the debt ceiling debacle, and any child of that process was doomed to disappoint. It's yet another example of legislators turning to a process solution as opposed to doing their jobs. The Congress is largely dysfunctional, unable to craft policy solutions to our biggest challenges.
A Pox on One of Their Houses: The Democrats on the committee went much further onto the Republicans side of the field, offering plans that were to the right of Simpson-Bowles or Gang of Six in terms of balancing spending cuts and revenue increases. The Republicans came a slight bit out of their comfort zone by offering minor revenues ($300 billion at one point) but offset this by a factor of 10+ by offering it only in tandem with locking in the Bush cuts, costing $3.6 trillion.
The Wrong Deficit: The deficit we should be fighting now is not the budget deficit: it's the jobs deficit, but policies to help on that front are nowhere to be seen (Democrats tried, I believe, to extend the payroll tax cut and Unemployment Insurance extension but never even got close).
No Deal Better Than Bad Deal: The automatic cuts take place in 2013. Though they lack balance (they're all cuts; no revenues) they're a better deal than plans that were being kicked around by the committee in its dying days. Some versions of those plans were too harsh to Medicare beneficiaries and, as noted, locked in the Bush tax cuts.
That Is, as Long as the Trigger Holds: Republicans are already talking about reconfiguring the trigger to cut defense less and non-defense more, something Democrats must stand firmly against. If it is shown -- and as of yet, this case has not been made -- that cuts of $55 billion per year on the $500+ billion defense budget actually compromise national security, then the only acceptable alternative is to reduce cuts to the non-defense budget or raise the needed revenues to achieve the required deficit reduction.
(By the way, I see here that Gov. Romney is complaining about "a $600 billion cut to our military." That's a 10-year figure, to be compared to about a defense budget of about $6 trillion.)
Is There Anything to Feel Good About Here? The only thing I can think of is that the Republicans did admit that new revenues need to be part of a deal... like I said, they hardly crossed that Rubicon before running back to the other shore advocating for huge tax cuts. But, sad to say, in this day and age, that was progress.
Also, I should note that the 10-year U.S. Treasury bill ended the day with a yield below 2%. Markets still view the U.S. as a safe port in a stormy world. Even our Congress has been unable to destroy our standing, though not for lack of trying.
Dan Glickman: On the "Death" of the Super Committee
Joanne Bamberger: Americans' Advice to the Super Committee
Sure... Yeah... 3.5 years and counting...
I said this yesterday and I said this the day the Stupid Congress was announced:
Anyone who thinks this Stupid Congress is anything more than a smoke screen to placate the debt ceiling debacle is trying to sell you something.
Anyone who thinks the members of the Stupid Congress would actually work together and come to anything resembling and agreement needs a serious reality check.
And ANYONE who thought that Congress would paint itself into a corner with 'etched in stone' triggers needs to go back on their medication.
To those of you who still thinks this is about left and right... shame on you. Every last one of them, INCLUDING the President, (ok, I'll give you Sen. Bernie Sanders) is on the take from Special Interests in one form or another.
This is all smoke and mirrors and most of you are still falling for it it seems.
You want to do something meaningful and important? Click on this link: www.getmoneyout.com
If you want to call your rep. go ahead and do that too... But odds are they honestly don't care... Even if they say they do...
The Bush tax cuts will expire in two years and then we'll get the revenue we need. (While we are at it, stop treating capital gains as if it is somehow different than other income and lift the cap on FICA tax so that Donal Trump and Koch Brothers pay at least the same effective rate in tax as their maid, janitors and secretaries.)
These "defense" cuts can be an excuse to root out the gravy train of corporate welfare that is the Pentagon.
It is time for you to wake up or better yet stop lying.
:-)
Not to mention, they excuse George W. Bush for actually LYING the nation into War in Iraq.
You just aren't used to hearing truth. Get used to a LOT more of it.
Get back to us when you turn off Fox "News" and condemn George W. Bush for LYING the nation into war.
"These "defense" cuts can be an excuse to root out the gravy train of corporate welfare"
Only if Democrats don't cave.
And they don't have a good track record on that.
...because their are too many Republicans; and especially because there are too many irrational, unreasonable, arrogant and obstinate Republicans. Point of fact: The Committee was doomed by the fact that all 6 of the GOP members are proud pledge-signers of the Norquist "Nonsense-ical-No-tax-not-now-not-ever" Club.
Since surrendering their freedom of choice to Grover, the GOP acts like a surreal collection of puppet-like automatons, all walking in lockstep, all eerily speaking the same words, and all with no real sense of common sense! These Norquistians have drunk the Kool-Aid; they’re frighteningly spooky; and they are blatantly derelict in performing their duties as public-servants. This has earned them the well-deserved nickname: "The Stupid Party!" And they're why Congress is dysfunctional!
To be clear, this wouldn’t have resulted in an actual cut in federal spending. Instead, annual federal spending would still have been 24 percent higher (on average) over the next decade than it was last year. Really, the deficit committee didn’t need to cut spending at all (in relation to 2011 spending). It simply needed to shave 12 cents off of every dollar of projected increases in spending. Yet, in the face of a $15 trillion national debt, the deficit committee couldn’t figure out how to do even this. It couldn’t bear to force the federal government to make do with just $44.57 trillion over the next decade, instead of $45.77 trillion.
Don't worry. You'll get used to paying your fair share again when the unnecessary and immoral Bush wartime tax cuts expire.
What with you having both feet planted firmly in reality in this regard, it is no surprise you left the Obama administration.
Kudos, sir.
but we need to dig deeper into that jobs deficit and look at the trade deficit - the far more important deficit as it pertains to jobs
the trade deficit is the measure of jobs, assetts, technology leaving the country
for every billion dollars of trade deficit = between 10,000 and 20,000 jobs lost
righting our trade imbalances goes a very long way to fiurst stopping the job losses and then increasing jobs as we once again begin producing what we consume for ousrselves rather than importing goods and exporting jobs
Hah!
Good luck with that. Our glorious leader can't even remove Geitner. What makes you think he or congress has a chance or even want to?
Sorry mate. I totally 100% completely agree with you right up to the part where some current elected official is going to stand up against special interests and lobbyists.
This country has just GOTTA HAVE their iPod and iPhone! They just gotta! Who cares if Apple is sitting on 80 billion in cash and can't be bothered to manufacture so much as a single Nano here domestically. Just gimmie that iPad for 99 bucks! Who cares if my neighbors havn't had a job in 2 years.
And yeah... I know... Nothing is made domestically anymore by any company... But you know what? Only Apple is claiming to be the richest most profitable AMERICAN company ever. An AMERICAN company who milked the tax code for every penny and made a killing on Chinese slave labor.
Yes... Tell me why I should feel proud about this AMERICAN company again?
I'm done. www.getmoneyout.com
Medicare Part D wasn't created to be a "benefit" for seniors, it was created to be corporate welfare for big pharma.
Let's start by closing all of these unnecessary military bases in Dixie, which votes conservatism on to the rest of us while being heavily subsidized by the federal government. Mississippi gets $2.02 for every dollar it contributes. Let's close one of their two Air Force bases. Make conservatives live under the ideology the try to vote onto everyone else but don't want to live under themselves.
The economy is in the crapper, there is no denying that and one way to improve the economy is for the government to spend on programs that create jobs. I hate to say this but the DoD has programs that create jobs, a lot of jobs and is currently doing that. To cut them deeply means you are going to cut tens of thousands of jobs in the civilian sector that supports them and the government sector that buys off the private sector.
Taxes need to be part of the solution, but so do cuts in programs that are not generating income and are liabilities. Our social programs generate tremendous amounts of liabilities yet they employ very few people. It is a hard argument to say we should spend more on social programs that generate few jobs when there are DoD programs that create tens of thousands of jobs
Major part of budget is personnel costs. Raises and benefits, signing bonuses and veterans care are about half of the DoD budget.
Eliminating weapon projects is the next way to cut. We really need to look at the next decade or two and determine military needs. We need to decide how much we need yet another fighter or carrier, etc. The problem there is the unintended consequences. Cutting weapons projects will cause some job loss.
The US can no longer be the police force of the world. A slow draw down of our military is needed. That is planning for the future. Already the US has the largest military budget in the world. Do we truly need to spend more than the rest of the world in total?
Again, as always, we must recognize that the baseline question is about the responsibility of the citizen to fellow citizens and to our community as a whole. How sad and immoral would it be to eliminate support for veterans, senior citizens, at-risk children and handicapped folks so that we can keep and enlarge our military-industrial complex?
So... yea. When's that happening?
In case anyone is counting, the Bush tax cuts have already been repealed when you look at the $$$ of tax increases scheduled by 2013 by Obama. He has raised $6 of permanent revenues for every $1 of permanent tax cuts. (Tan tax, swipe fee, HC tax, etc).
Obama has fooled the people into thinking one bucket in Washington pays for another bucket, when in fact it operates as a big leaky bathtub.
Obama could have paid for HC with the Bush tax cuts. But he raised taxes for that (Please anyone that believes the savings needs to look at the government’s record on that. Never happens. Ever). But the greedy Dems want even more targeting the Bush tax cuts.
So what we have still are no real cuts that would take us off the course fiscal and economic disaster. And Obama, who like the wizard of Oz still denies responsibility, and is still wholly accountable.
Our nation is dysfunctional; not only the government.
Try to present some positive workable ideas. If nothing else, those ideas would make for a constructive conversation.
Also leadership. Hmmm?
Obama is running the show... Read my posts and you will see that once Obama canned the performance officer and Orzag left, my posts warned about all these things well in advance so they were knowable.
And in case you can’t see what the positive recommendation is, it is asking the government to govern (look up the root of the word) and do their job without breaking the bank. It is amazing we need to do this.
How about just asking them to stop doing what they have been doing. Here are two things that create jobs and save money:
1. Stop the NLRB's baseless case. Read it before commenting. It is based upon an off the cuff remark years ago. Let Boeing build that plant in SC right away.
2. Let the XL Pipeline be built. It passed all environmental hurdles, and there are already 50 pipelines through Nebraska. Canada has an oil and gas economy on our backs. You will see this creates jobs as well.
In BOTH cases the decision is for these jobs to be created here, or they go overseas. Obama I the one that is lazy and making political decisions.