The congressional supercommittee was supposed to make all of the hard budgetary choices that representatives couldn’t be trusted to make on their own. As the final deadline looms, it’s looking like the end result will be the imposition of fake spending cuts and real tax hikes.
The debt-ceiling deal struck earlier this year gave this extraordinary panel until Nov. 23 to submit its decisions to the Congressional Budget Office and avoid triggering $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts - half from defense. The committee is supposed to find that amount in deficit reduction over 10 years in order to compensate for the next bump up in the debt ceiling.
A meeting of the minds isn’t likely because, even behind closed doors, Democrats refuse to address the real drivers of our debt: Medicare and Medicaid. Republican Medicare reform proposals include the Ryan plan and the bipartisan Rivlin-Domenici plan. The supercommittee gave both sides bipartisan cover to implement the necessary but politically difficult changes such as means testing and increasing the eligibility age.
Link to entire article:MILLER: Supercommittee a super dud - Washington Times
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