Super Committee: A Bumpy Ride Ahead

21 August 2011 |permalink | email article

The “super committee” on deficit reduction, launched on the fly, has been granted unheard of new power to chart the country’s budget and policy decisions for the next decade. But there are no clear rules yet to govern the bipartisan panel. It has fewer than three months to recommend $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction, Washington’s largest unpredictable budget reform effort in 20 years.

The committee, by law, must convene by Sept. 16, a requirement included in the deal to increase the debt ceiling. But right after President Obama signed the legislation Congress left the Capitol for its August recess. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is demanding reduced government spending on Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements, much to the delight of Republicans who refuse to consider new taxes. Democrats won’t cut entitlement programs unless new revenue is part of the deal.

The committee must make recommendations by Nov. 23, and Congress must vote on them by Dec. 23. Failure means that scary triggers will then become operative. Another fascinating sidebar to observe is the lobbying role of the conservative Club of Growth. Conservative GOP Sen. Pat Toomey, a committee member, is former head of the Club. He’s been succeeded by Chris Chocola who told the Hotline on Call last week that committee member Fred Upton (R.Mich,) is “my greatest worry. He’s been around a long time and he has a long record, and it’s not necessarily a conservative record.” It foreshadows a nasty ideological duel of what to expect.

Quotable

There is a good measure of defensiveness in the Bush crowd’s dismissal of Perry. It is though they are staring into a cracked mirror and seeing the flaws of their favorite son, George W. Bush. – Howard Fineman, in The Huffington Post, on how the Perry-Rove story is shaping up as the ultimate tale of dangerously unintended consequences, with Rove in the role of Dr. Frankenstein and Perry as his living, rampaging political creation. 

The country needs the president to rise to this crisis in word, spirit and deed. We need him to reach out of his nature and into the nation’s need. We are on a precipice. – Charles Blow in The New York Times

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