Debt Super Committee: Dead on Arrival?

16 August 2011 |permalink | email article

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday her three appointees to the bipartisan “debt ‘super committee,’ making the panel’s 12-member roster now complete. It represents a wide range of ideological points of view, from House Republican Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Tex.) on the right to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on the left.

Over the next three months the committee will be asked to make recommendations of at least $1.5 trillion in budget cuts. It center tremendous power in very few hands – lobbying concerns that should deeply worry the country.

But the group’s makeup reignites a problem that has always plagued Congress – the lack of gender and racial diversity. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash,) is the only woman in the panel. House Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Xavier Becerra (Calif.) is the group’s only Hispanic. House Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (S.C.) is the only African American. Neither Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell nor House Speaker John Boehner appointed any women or minorities.

I have a deeper concern. The conservative Club of
Growth and its members gave more money to
lawmakers who are members of the “super
committee” than any other organization, PAC, re
the nonpartisan MapLight.org. The club has been
influential in past campaigns, helping propel its past
president, conservative Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) to
the Senate last fall.Toomey’s on the committee.

New GOP Ten Commandments—Huffington Post

* Thou Shalt Not Raise ANY Taxes
* Thou Shalt Pass a Constitutional Amendment to Make Abortion Illegal.
* Thou Shalt Pass a Constitutional Amendment to Define Marriage as the Union of a Man and a Woman
* Thou Shalt Repeal ObamaCare,” AKA the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
* Thou Shalt Repeat the Dodd-Frank Banking Regulation Act
* Thou Shalt Pass a Constitutional Amendment to Balance the Federal Budget
* Thou Shalt Only Give Military Support to “Our Friends”
* Thou Shalt Limit the Power of – if Not Entirely – the EPA
* Thou Shalt Drill, Mine and Frak to the widest extent possible
* Thou Shalt Take the Name of President Obama in Vein  

Quotable

“My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It’s time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice.” – Warren E. Buffett, in a New York Times’ op-ed, that those making more than $1 million – there were 236,883 such households in 2009 – I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million. 

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