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Subscribe to RSSOnly 28 days stand between the deficit “Supercommitte” and the looming deadline of Nov. 23rd, leaving some worried that the time constraint may make a deal harder to achieve.
"Time is short. That doesn't give you a lot of confidence," House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters today, "But the reports that I have received from our three [members of the committee] is that there is an honest effort."
Doubts about whether a deal will be struck by the deadline are beginning to rise, with Hoyer stepping away from a generally positive tone he has held before.
"I'm not optimistic,” he said today. “I'm hopeful.”
When pressed if he was confident that a deal would be met, he made sure to clarify his opinion.
"Did I say I was confident?" Hoyer asked reporters.
"You said you were hopeful," a reporter said.
"Hopeful is not confident," Hoyer responded.
The Supercommittee has been tasked with achieving $1.5 trillion in cuts as part of the debt limit deal reached in August. If at least $1.2 trillion in cuts is not reached, a "trigger" will be pulled which will result in just under $1 trillion in across the board cuts to defense and entitlements.
"Obviously there is a strong constraint of time," Rep. John Larson (D-CT) explained to reporters today, "but a great opportunity here."
Larson hinted to the current Congressional calendar as need for concern.
If Congress continues with its current schedule, there are only five days in which both the House and Senate will be in session at the same time between now and the Nov. 23rd deadline. Members of the Supercommittee have been meeting during recesses the past weeks, so the lack of overlap is not necessarily a cause for panic, but it does create logistical barriers.
Democrats in the House continue to push for a "big deal" that reaches somewhere in the vicinity of $4 trillion, and falls within the guidelines of previous deficit reduction groups that have tried, but failed, to achieve that level of cuts in the deficit.
"I think it's absolutely essential that we do so, that we succeed in producing a product that is a big deal and not a small deal," Hoyer said. "If we do a small deal we'll have to revist that."
Republican Supercommittee co-Chair Rep. Jeb Hensarling, who has repeatedly said that "nothing is off the table," says he is "encouraged" that they will be able to reach a consensus.
"I remain encouraged that the members of the Joint-Select Committee know how serious the situation is, and I believe they are all committed to achieving the goal," Hensarling told reporters today. "The report is due at midnight on November 22nd, and we still have plenty of time to make that."
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This comes as NO surprise!
None what so ever!
This is the BIGGER story!
WTF are we PAYING these Congress Critters for?
Like this game even matters. Remember PAYGO ? Every single increase in spending was supposed to be offset by a decrease elsewhere or a tax increase. Everything was supposed to be paid for as you went along. As soon as George W. Bush came in PAYGO went.
Same thing applies here, this is a one Congress panacea to the Tea Party. After the next election, as the saying goes, "This too shall pass."
I'm SHOCKED, I tell you. SHOCKED.
Now come on, Feisty----they are exhausted from all the hard work they are putting in---the House has to spend to much time curtailing women's reproductive rights it is amazing they have any energy to meet at all. And the Senate----all those faux filibusters are tiring!
You beat me to it Anna Molly.
No surprise here.
By now they have a thousand pages done that they all agree on, they just are keeping their success under their hats. A few more touch-ups and presto! A bi-partisan piece of legislation that will pass with unaminous votes in both houses of Congress and gladly be signed into law by President Barack Obama.
Hey Scott, where can I get some of those drugs you are taking?
That's awesome.
The 'Supercommittee' is a joke. It was designed to fail because of the appointed members - 6 from the far left who demand tax increases and 6 from the far right that demand spending cuts. The result will be stalemate. They may come up with minimal points to agree upon, but the result will probably be the mandatory cuts for anything less than what they can agree upon.
There will be equal cuts to Defense and Discretionary programs, but they won't take effect until 2013, and in the meantime, a new Congress will add back most of the Defense cuts and whatever it wants in 'Discretionary' spending.
Here's a good rule of thumb to use for any agreement;
If Congress agrees to future spending cuts, it is NOT binding on any future Congress or President.
If Congress agrees to any tax increases, it IS binding on any future Congress or President.
So there will be no agreement because Republicans will not agree to tax increases because there can be no 'guarantee' of spending cuts, and the Democrats will not agree to spending cuts without tax increases - Sort of a "Catch 22".
Oh, give me a break. "Doubts rise...?" That would imply people thought they would accomplish something. Well, maybe politicos did, but based on the financial sites I've been reading, investors sure didn't. There's a lot of people looking to sell out of this current rally before that super committee's failure becomes apparent.
Stop "f"ing around already! Damned Republicans.
Rather than field a committee of professional politicians who refuse to find their way out of a paper bag with both hands, field a group of citizens who have no loyalty to any special interest group that provides them funding?
I'm certain a group of twenty-one can formulate a policy on how to cut waste from the budget, do it quickly and with little effort.
I do agree with the above post, why pay these folks for their ineptitude.
Folks, wake up...we elected 500 + so called politicans to do a job which they have already proven they will not do....yet..we are still voting for basicly the same ones each time..or the same items that they will continue to follow...and who are the losers in this..the voters...but only if they wake up and look at what weashington is doing. Congress...throwing blame one way then the other just covering up the fact that not one of them is doing their elected jobs. Just who do these politicans work for...the voters...good joke...they work for lobbyist, big business, banking..ands it shows. And the ones running for office of president today....you would have to be blind and dumb not to see who they are for..and it is not the citizens, the majority of citizens..it is for the upper percent that can afford to buy them off..and they have done so. There are too many problems in washington..throwing this lame group into the mix will for sure make matters worse...we as voters have to wake up..and call on these politicans to give out real honest answers to questions that none of them so far have answered.
I thought the "super committee" was a joke to begin with. Primarily, since the government as a whole is incompetent to do their jobs of working for the American people, they are too busy working for the wealthy, and keeping that silver spoon in their mouths, so they come up with this "super committee" to do the math, and congress will just reject it all, then we're right back to square one again.....massively broke, but the wealthy will come out shining as usual.
There will only be a small deal - if that. The Republicans don't have "market incentives" to make a deal.
the repubs prduced a budget that actually does more (to being to balance and redeuce deficit) than the super committee has been tasked with dude. thats kinda funny. methinks its those other guys who dont have any incentive. those ones who havent actually produced or voted on a budget in about 3 years...nice try tho, 'bot.
By now they have a thousand pages done that they all agree on, they just are keeping their success under their hats. A few more touch-ups and presto! A bi-partisan piece of legislation that will pass with unaminous votes in both houses of Congress and gladly be signed into law by President Barack Obama.
This committee was set up to fail from the get-go! Why is anyone surprised?
"We have met the enemy and he is us!" Pogo by Walt Kelly
Of course they won't reach a deal. And what's more it doesn't matter. The cuts mandated on a failure to pass a resolution do not take effect until 2013.
The Republican party is betting that they can win control and simply make them disappear legislatively in 2013 thus negating any need to compromise on anything.
The GOP has completely leveraged itself on the outcome of the 2012 elections in the senate and white house. Quite the gutsy decision to make.
If the Democrats actually retain the White House and the Senate the Republicans are counting on retaining the House which means they can strangle legislation until a bill remitting the cuts is passed.
The GOP have a winning strategy for themselves.
1. shoot for total control of government and avoid compromise in the mean time
2. if all else fails fall back on House majority after elections and resume strangling
Too bad very little of that strategy has the common interest of the citizen.
why am I not surprised...
xxxx://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H-PS_pr-t0
The best way to find $1.5 T in cuts over 10 years, (only $150B / yr) eliminate entire agencies. ATF for starters... Alcohol is legal, Tobacco is legal, Firearms are legal, the ATF not so much. Eliminate the Dept of Labor, the NLRB, Phase out agriculture subsidies over 4 years, Eliminate the Dept of Energy, and all DOE subsidies for green jobs, which have turned out to be kickback programs for campaign contributions.