Frugal Café Blog Zone

Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on November 21, 2011

Flashback: 'Party of Hell No' - 9/12 March on Washington DC against increased government spending in 2009

Did anyone truly believe this congressional “super committee” would work?

I heard it said over the weekend that this deficit committee is much like Congress and the White House, only in miniature, with their diametrically opposing views on spending.

We’re at $15 trillion in debt, and no end in sight.

From NY Times, Lawmakers Trade Blame as Deficit Talks Crumble:

With the hours ticking away toward a self-imposed deadline, Congressional leaders conceded Sunday that talks on a sweeping deficit agreement were near failure and braced for recriminations over their inability to reach a deal.

The stalemate was the latest sign of partisan deadlock in Washington, which members of both parties do not expect to lift until the 2012 election has clarified which party has the upper hand.

Barring an unexpected turnaround before Monday’s deadline, the failure of the special Congressional deficit committee will be the third high-profile effort to fall short of a deal in the last 12 months, including a bipartisan deficit commission and talks last summer between President Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner.

By law, the special Congressional committee’s inability to reach an agreement will trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts over 10 years to the military and domestic programs, to start in 2013.

As time wound down to a Monday night deadline for an agreement, Capitol Hill lacked the frenzied negotiation typical of a Congressional race to beat the clock. Instead, many members — well aware that Congressional approval ratings are near historic lows in polls — seemed resigned to the fact that Democrats and Republicans remained far apart on major budget issues, especially tax increases on the affluent, which Democrats insist must be part of any deficit solution and which Republicans oppose.

[...]

Democrats blamed the Republicans for their unwillingness to yield on a no-new-taxes pact they signed at the request of a conservative antitax group, arguing that the American public realizes that no grand deal could be reached without a combination of spending cuts and new tax revenue.

[...]

But Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, the co-chairman, said it was the Democrats’ inflexibility that had caused the impasse, particularly when it came to agreeing to major money-saving changes in social programs like Medicare and Social Security.

“Unfortunately, what we haven’t seen in these talks from the other side is any Democrats willing to put a proposal on the table that actually solves the problems,” Mr. Hensarling said on “Fox News Sunday.”

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