US Supercommitee Admits Defeat

[R.O.A]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/sup ... 58879.html

It's all over. The "supercommittee"--the bipartisan group of lawmakers charged with hammering out a plan to reduce the federal deficit--has admitted defeat. With the panel's Wednesday deadline looming, Democrats and Republicans say they're just too far apart on what mix of tax hikes and spending cuts would be best.

Under the terms of the law that created the supercommittee this summer, a stalemate triggers automatic spending cuts of $1.2 trillion, the amount of deficit reduction the panel was tasked with achieving. The idea was that those automatic cuts would be so unpopular that they would create an incentive for the supercommittee to come to a deal.

So much for that plan. So what happens now?

Where will the automatic spending cuts come from?

By law, 18 percent of the savings--or $216 billion--is assumed to come from reduced interest payments. So that leaves $984 billion in actual cuts, divided equally between defense and domestic programs.

When would they go into effect?

The cuts are supposed to start in 2013 and would be spread across the next nine years. That means that both defense and domestic programs would each see cuts of around $55 billion a year for that period.

That sounds like a lot. What are the implications for national security?

There's disagreement on just how damaging the defense cuts would be. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said they would require a 23 percent reduction of the military's budget for 2013, forcing civilian employees to be furloughed and threatening combat readiness.

"Facing such large reductions, we would have to reduce the size of the military sharply," Panetta wrote in a letter to lawmakers last week, in which he invoked a "doomsday" scenario. And Buck McKeon, a Republican representative from California who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, wrote to the supercommittee recently that "unless we act today, the dismantling of the greatest armed forces in history could begin tomorrow."

Many others say those dire warnings are overblown. Lawmakers from both parties have been looking to reduce the Pentagon's bloated budget anyway, so the Defense Department is already preparing for around $450 billion in cuts over the next decade. If the automatic cuts also go into effect, defense spending would fall by about 11 percent to around $472 billion in 2013--about the same level it was at in 2007, according to defense budget experts. (From there until the end of the decade, the defense budget would grow with inflation.)

Many others say those dire warnings are overblown. If the automatic cuts go into effect, defense spending would fall by about $490 billion--or around 11 percent--over the next decade. In 2013 alone, the United States would still spend around $472 billion on defense. That's the amount we spent in 2007, according to defense budget experts. We could cut even deeper, to a budget of around $425 billion annually, and still spend more than four times the amount budgeted by our closest competitor, China.

"The range of cuts being discussed is still well within the proportions of drawdowns after the ends of the Korean, Vietnam and Cold wars," Aviation Week wrote recently. "Even the most drastic cuts will not end the U.S.'s superpower status."

The real problem may have less to do with the size of the cuts than with how they're likely to happen. At least at the start, the cuts will go into effect in a mechanical, across-the-board fashion, without regard to larger strategic considerations--an approach that just about everyone agrees is the worst possible way to reduce defense spending.

"Strategy needs to drive budgets, and not the other way around," Michael Breen, a vice president of the Truman National Security Project and a decorated former Army captain, told Yahoo News. "The idea that some self-imposed political crisis dictates our national-security strategy is insane."

What about on the domestic front?

Grandma can relax, mostly. Social Security is exempt from the automatic cuts under the trigger scenario. And Medicare cuts, which are limited to 2 percent of that program's budget, will come from reductions in payments to doctors and hospitals, not from cuts to seniors' benefits. Also exempt are several programs that benefit the poor--unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and food stamps, among others--as well as those that benefit veterans.

What does that leave? Several other programs that play a key role in the social safety net--low-income housing vouchers; the Head Start early education program; and public health initiatives, for instance--are likely to be on the chopping block, according to Richard Kogan, a senior fellow at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and a former White House budget adviser.

There's also the rest of the domestic spending landscape: the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, the National Parks, and so on.

As with defense, the cuts will at first be applied uniformly and indiscriminately. "Whatever those programs would otherwise have gotten in 2013, they're gonna get 9.3 percent less," Kogan told Yahoo News, citing the figure by which domestic spending will be reduced under the trigger.

Are these cuts definitely going to happen?

Not necessarily. Lawmakers opposed to the cuts have more than a year to pass legislation that would eliminate the trigger, and some Republicans, concerned about the cuts to the military budget, are already pushing a bill that would stop them from taking effect.

Yet the automatic trigger was approved by Congress just a few months ago, and the White House has said that President Obama would veto any measures to override it. Speaker of the House John Boehner has said he'd feel "bound" to honor the trigger. It's unclear whether those pledges have any wiggle room.

Well, there goes that idea

[madd0ct0r]

I quite like the idea to be honest - it's certainly not the most efficient way to make the cuts, but nobody can complain or try to game the system, and everybody has a years notice to work out a 97% budget for next year.

Which might make this method more efficient then you'd expect, since there is no time and energy wasted trying to wriggle out of it.

[The Romulan Republic]

At least they have a year to bicker over it before it takes effect. And half of its coming from defence. But still, Jesus Christ, start doing your job, Congress.

[Lord Zentei]

So a committee designed to be deadlocked failed? Say it ain't so!

What a load of bullshit. If only there were some kind of leader who could step in and knock heads together and make things happen. A singular individual who could command respect as the USA's #1 official.

EDIT: eh, who am I kidding. It's not as if they want any kind of mediation.

[Highlord Laan]

Know what I find infuriating? If my job performance were even half as pathetic as that of congress, I'd be jobless and out on my ass. Guaranteed employment with virtually no effort at the cost of everyone else must be great.

[Flagg]

Shocked! Shocked I say!

[SirNitram]

So the Select Committee lost it's power to ram through it's recommendations without amendment or anything, and gave up. It's not like there's a bar on these Senators working together further, or offering a bill. But, the GOP was going to sink this from the start. The only surprising thing is no Dems caved.

[Flagg]

So the Select Committee lost it's power to ram through it's recommendations without amendment or anything, and gave up. It's not like there's a bar on these Senators working together further, or offering a bill. But, the GOP was going to sink this from the start. The only surprising thing is no Dems caved.

No, the surprising thing is Obama has vowed to veto any bills trying to bypass the cuts mandated in the previous bill. Of course when he gets reelected I'm sure he will stick to that.

[Minischoles]

Some of the GOP are already trying to undo the automatic cuts - not to the social cuts obviously, but to stop the precious military budget from getting cut. Watch as a raft of legislation comes in that Obama has to veto, which the press and GOP will then screech about.

This committee was doomed from the start - the GOP would never raise taxes and the Democrats on it actually possessed a spine to not just bend over and take it.

[Simon_Jester]

So the Select Committee lost it's power to ram through it's recommendations without amendment or anything, and gave up. It's not like there's a bar on these Senators working together further, or offering a bill. But, the GOP was going to sink this from the start. The only surprising thing is no Dems caved.

Their backs are to the wall, especially with the left wing of the Dems beginning to stir again with Occupy Wall Street. They can't compromise more without the compromise being a direct hit on the lives and fortunes of people who are depending on them.

They could compromise on health care because there, all that was at stake was a chance to make the system better for people- you can decline to improve things without getting ripped apart. Actively making things worse, without putting up a credible fight to avoid having to do it, will get you in more trouble with the voters, once the voters start paying attention.

Which, now, they are.

[Lord Zentei]

Neither side was able to compromise for fear of their base.

This is part and parcel of the radicalization of American politics. For all that "centrism" gets the blame for these kinds of things, the continued polarization doesn't exactly bode well for the future.

[General Mung Beans]

I'm glad the cuts are across the board including military spending-the farm subsidies could have used some more trimming though.

[Civil War Man]

Link

WASHINGTON — Congress’ supercommittee conceded ignominious defeat Monday in its quest to conquer a government debt that stands at a staggering $15 trillion, unable to overcome deep and enduring political divisions over taxes and spending.

Stock prices plummeted at home and across debt-scarred Europe as the panel ended its brief, secretive existence without an agreement. Republicans and Democrats alike pointed fingers of blame, maneuvering for political advantage in advance of 2012 elections less than a year away.

The impasse underscored grave doubts about Washington’s political will to make tough decisions and left a cloud of uncertainty over the U.S. economy at the same time that Greece, Italy, Spain and other European countries are reeling from a spreading debt crisis and recession worries.

Lawmakers of both parties agreed action in Congress was still required, somehow, and soon.

“Despite our inability to bridge the committee’s significant differences, we end this process united in our belief that the nation’s fiscal crisis must be addressed and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve,” the panel’s two co-chairs, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Tex., said in a somber statement.

They added it was not possible to present “any bipartisan agreement” — omitting any reference to the goal of $1.2 trillion in cuts over a decade that had been viewed as a minimum for success.

President Barack Obama — criticized by Republicans for keeping the committee at arm’s length — said refusal by the GOP to raise taxes on the wealthy as part of a deal that also cut social programs was the main stumbling block.

“They simply will not budge from that negotiating position,” he said.

Obama pledged to veto any attempt by lawmakers to repeal a requirement for $1 trillion in automatic spending cuts that are to be triggered by the supercommittee’s failure to reach a compromise, unless Congress approves an alternative approach.

Those cuts are designed to fall evenly on the military and domestic government programs beginning in 2013, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as well as lawmakers in both parties have warned the impact on the Pentagon could be devastating.

“In my four decades involved with public service, I have never been more concerned about the ability of Congress to forge common-sense solutions to the nation’s pressing problems,” Panetta, a former House budget committee chairman, said in a statement. “The half-trillion dollars in additional cuts demanded by sequester would lead to a hollow force incapable of sustaining the missions it is assigned.”

In reality, though, it is unclear if any of those reductions will ever take effect, since next year’s presidential and congressional elections have the potential to alter the political landscape before then.

The brief written statement from Murray and Hensarling was immediately followed by a hail of recriminations.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Republicans had “never found the courage to ignore the tea party extremists” and “never came close to meeting us half way.”

So politically Obama's basically been handed a win on a silver platter. There have been attempts to blame him for Congress's failure, but there isn't really anything that can be done that will make him look worse than Congress on this issue.

With the Supercommittee giving up, they've publicly admitted that they can't get anything done.
If Congress tries to untrigger the automatic cuts, Obama vetoes it, and he comes out looking like the only adult in the room.
If Congress overrides the veto, they come out looking even worse, basically publicly admitting that they are so spineless that they can't even handle making a tough decision that's already been made for them.

The only way Obama could really cock this up is if Congress tries to untrigger the cuts and he signs it. At which point we'd have to suspect severe head trauma because brain damage would be the only reason he'd go along with something that presents him with absolutely no political upside.

[Force Lord]

Already posted: http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 2&t=152304

EDIT: Can a mod merge this thread with the other one? Or lock it?

[Simon_Jester]

Neither side was able to compromise for fear of their base.

This is part and parcel of the radicalization of American politics. For all that "centrism" gets the blame for these kinds of things, the continued polarization doesn't exactly bode well for the future.

No, it doesn't. We're headed for another intense clash of ideas and competing models for what our nation should look like, the likes of which has not been seen since the 1960s and perhaps not for longer than that.

I can only hope that over the decade-long run, the worldview that triumphs will be the one that offers more room for our society to flourish, and does less to choke out the aspirations and hopes of the people living in it.

[The Romulan Republic]

For what its worth, when such clashes of ideologies have happened in the past in America, the side that is more favourable to human rights and democracy has tended to come out on top in the end.

I just hope it doesn't involve a lot of people dying to achieve that this time.

[Starglider]

Quite revealing for the Republicans, in that it finally proves that their allegience to the super-wealthy overrides their affinity for military expansion and adventurism. I do wonder if shrinking the military (assuming it actually goes ahead) will impact their support from the hyper-patriot crowd. Probably not a lot though, I mean who else can they vote for, certainly not the unamerican demoRATS .

[D.Turtle]

The key thing about this entire deal is that cuts don't start happening until 2013.

So there's still lots of time to do nothing about it.