Negative Quiddity: The Debt Supercommittee

Why the Supercommittee Failed

Mike Allen [ http://www.politico.com/playbook/1111/playbook1609.html ]: "The supercommittee last met Nov. 1 -- three weeks ago! It was a public hearing featuring a history lesson, 'Overview of Previous Debt Proposals,' with Alan Simpson, Erskine Bowles, Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin
[http://www.deficitreduction.gov/public/index.cfm/hearings?ContentRecord_id=2d70f2e0-1d99-4144-bdcf-5202ac9fdb87 ]. The last PRIVATE meeting was Oct. 26. You might as well stop reading right there: The 12 members (6 House, 6 Senate; 6 R, 6 D) were never going to strike a bargain, grand or otherwise, if they weren't talking to each other. Yes, we get that real deal-making occurs in small groups. But there never WAS a functioning supercommittee: There was Republican posturing and Democratic posturing, with some side conversations across the aisle."

--Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire, November 20, 2011

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Bad Bureaucratic Kabuki Theatre

Back at the end of July, it was obvious that the House and Senate were not going to be able to come to a deficit agreement. So they "kicked the can down the road" with a temporary agreement and a "supercommittee" to be staffed as directed by the party heads of the Senate and House.

What happened was fully predictable and thus expected by the leadership. The democrats selected hacks who would not compromise on entitlements. The Republicans selected hacks who would not increase taxes.
Thus no agreement was ever possible on reducing the deficit by the supercommittee "goal" of $1.2 trillion dollars. It was designed not to happen, so it didn’t, and the actual members couldn’t pretend that agreement was viable.

Instead, automatic across-the-board cuts will begin in January of 2013, which is conveniently past the upcoming election.

For external reasons, kicking the can down the road is "working." The European financial crisis is so serious and immediate that the American budget problem seems small, and American investments look safe. So bad European leadership has bought time for American politicians. But not that much time.