Supercommittee members trade blame for impending failure

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

With the congressional "supercommittee" ready to admit defeat, lawmakers are pointing fingers for the failed experiment in every direction.

Republicans are decrying President Obama's limited involvement in the negotiations and the Democrats' insistence on raising taxes. Members of the president's party, meanwhile, are pointing to the GOP's refusal to raise taxes as a sign that the party is beholden to anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.

"As long as we have some Republican lawmakers who feel more enthralled with a pledge they took to a Republican lobbyist than they do to a pledge to the country to solve the problems, this is going to be hard to do," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wa., the Democratic co-chair of the supercommittee, said on CNN on Sunday, referencing the no-tax pledge run by Norquist's group, American for Tax Reform.

Some supercomittee members -- including Murray and the Republican co-chair, Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas -- suggested Sunday there could be a last-minute effort to put a deal together. "Nobody wants to give up hope," Hensarling said on "Fox News Sunday." He added that "reality is to some extent starting to overtake hope," but he said negotiations were still in the works.

Still, rather than meeting one last time, Murray, Hensarling and other lawmakers spent Sunday on political talk shows to all but concede defeat. The 12-member bipartisan committee was tasked with finding at least $1.2 trillion in budget savings by November 23. However, given that the Congressional Budget Office would need a couple of days to estimate the actual cost savings in their plan, the committee's effective deadline is today.

Hensarling lamented on Fox, "unfortunately, what we haven't seen in these talks from the other side is any Democrats willing to put a proposal on the table that actually solves the problems."

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., drafted a plan for the Republican side that would have trimmed spending on Medicare and Social Security and closed tax loopholes and tax breaks to raise revenue. But rather than letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire as Democrats want, the plan would have lowered marginal income tax rates, bringing the highest bracket down to 28 percent.

On CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, said he had "taken a lot of arrows" from conservatives for proposing to close tax breaks. He blamed Democrats' "insistence that we have a trillion dollar tax increase" for the lack of progress in the committee.

On NBC's "Meet the Press," meanwhile, Democratic supercommittee member Sen. John Kerry, Mass., said of Republicans, "If they will give up their insistence on the Bush tax cuts, we can get this done."

Some Democrats, the New York Times reports, specifically blamed Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, Ariz., for the group's stalemate. One unnamed Democrat close to negotiations told the Times, "While Kyl is in the group, it sure seems that nothing will happen."

Kyl responded on Fox News on Monday that Times report gave "a characterization that would be unfair to any of the members of the committee." Also appearing Monday on CNBC, Kyl suggested letting the committee fail was politically convenient for Democrats because "the president gets to keep his message there's a dysfunctional Congress."

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. -- who is not on the supercommittee -- also suggested Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that the president kept his distance from the negotiations as part of a "political strategy."

"I think it's very difficult for the Democrats on that committee to enter into a negotiation, not knowing where the White House is," he said.

The White House, meanwhile, chided the supercommittee for its impending failure. "Avoiding accountability and kicking the can down the road is how Washington got into this deficit problem in the first place," White House spokesperson Amy Brundage said in a statement.

[sharkboy234]

SOMEBODY EMAIL TO JOHN KERRY TO TELL THE DEMOCRATS IN THE HOUSE AND SENATE TO BLOCK THE VOTES NOW AND FILIBUST AND GOOD LUCK

[marydelvillano]

Our elected officials do not or cannot work together for the american people, it is time to say "YOUR FIRED!!" to all sitting politicians. instead of blaming the other guy, you are ALL AT FAULT. get your stuff together and do your job or GET OUT!!

[LoadedAndDangerous]

Don't blame Socialist Obama and the Liberals because they're not responsible for anything because they do nothing but add more WORTHLESS Liberals to the Welfare rolls. If you want to find a Liberal, lift a rock.

[kes25-2009]

GOP= Party of the WILLFULLY IGNORANT!!

[kes25-2009]

You're entertaining Mortar! Dumb as a box with no rocks but entertaining none the less LOL!

[mrbucket2]

The republicans knew that they would come up with no solution when this committee was created. More political than caring for the country. Anything to try and make us believe that they do, while stabbing Democrats before the 2012 election.
Buy some more lobbyist groups you f?#&@>> %*%#blicans, that will keep the economy growing, lol.

[arthanyel]

chevyhotrod: That's only because your numbers don't include all the yet to be allocated PAC and RNC money. Republicans (in total) have raised more money than Democrats (in total) so far. Historically Republicans out-raise Democrats in total because Republicans get more large donations from the wealthy and corporations, while Democrats get more donations from individuals (although both parties are majority owned subsidiaries of the 1%).

[John782011]

Grover does not need to go, he actually needs to be postered on every election poster with the question "Are you voting for this one guy or are you voting for America"

[arthanyel]

A balanced bnudget amendment is a stunt, useless, unnecessary and dangerous. Congress can balance the budget any time they choose, and as we have seen from states with such amendments they are routinely bypassed or ignored.

We don't need a balanced budget amendment - we need a responsible Congress.

[dzaffina]

how can you have abalanced budget with a pledge to not raise taxes? like if we started two trillion dollar wars, a trillion dollar homeland security program, a trillion dollar drug company give away program, millions of people not paying taxes because they lost their jobs and we cut taxes that cost trillions. how do you balance a budget when you have a pledge for no taxes?

[dzaffina]

The GOP campaign to aid the wealthy has left America unable to raise the money needed to pay its bills. "The Republican Party went on a tax-cutting rampage and a spending spree," says Rhode Island governor and former GOP senator Lincoln Chafee, pointing to two deficit-financed wars and an unpaid-for prescription-drug entitlement. "It tanked the economy." Tax receipts as a percent of the total economy have fallen to levels not seen since before the Korean War - nearly 20 percent below the historical average. "Taxes are ridiculously low!" says Bruce Bartlett, an architect of Reagan's 1981 tax cut. "And yet the mantra of the Republican Party is 'Tax cuts raise growth.' So - where's the fricking growth?"

[mrbucket2]

I think the growth was not mentioned for the country. I do believe they were referring to their growth, the 1%.

[arthanyel]

chevyhotrod: The PWC numbers, designed for their clients, do not match everyone else's. There are several studies that show different effective rates, most are partisan. For a fairly non-partisan look, we can examine the GAO and World Bank numbers http://mediamatters.org/research/201002020005 which show that the US effective corporate tax rate is about on par with the rest of the first world countries. We could lower the actual rate to 25% to 27% and remove all the loopholes and get the same (or more) revenue.

So while the top tax rate is one of the highest in the world, the effective tax rate is about the same. We can not raise corporate taxes. If we cut many loopholes and subsidies we will likely need to lower the top rate. But since so many very large companies pay little or no taxes at all (or even get refunds) there is room to restructure the tax code to get a fairer distribution.

[FromStuttgart]

Hey, Congress--put your country ahead of your ideology and compromise already! Forget Norquist! Think about the troops you say you care about. If they can lay their lives on the line, why would you coddle millionaires and billionaires, some of whom are urging you to raise their taxes to help this country!

[arthanyel]

chevyhotrod: Why should any millionaire pay to carry the dead weight of the Koch brothers? If we want to rasise taxes on the rich, raise them on all the rich, not a selective tax on only the most socially responsible?

[dzaffina]

Since Republicans rededicated themselves to slashing taxes for the wealthy in 1997, the average annual income of the 400 richest Americans has more than tripled, to $345 million - while their share of the tax burden has plunged by 40 percent. Today, a billionaire in the top 400 pays less than 17 percent of his income in taxes - five percentage points less than a bus driver earning $26,000 a year. "Most Americans got none of the growth of the preceding dozen years," says Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist. "All the gains went to the top percentage points."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-gop-became-the-party-of-the-rich-20111109#ixzz1eNMpCy8x

[arthanyel]

chevyhotrod: You are using fallacious reasoning. The accuracy of an observation is irrespective of its source.

In this case, this fact that the richest 400 Americans have seen their wealth skyrocket and their tax burden plummet has been widely reported from many sources and is a factual statement.

[arthanyel]

by Mortarman291SG: If Grover tells the people "this idiot raised your taxes..." and then the people vote the idiot out...who actually had the power?

----- cut here -----

The people have the ultimate responsibility to elect their representatives. No lobbyist or corporation has that ultimate authority. But since 16 out of 17 races are won by the one that spends the most money, and most of the money comes from lobbyists and corporations, we have a problem. And Norquist won't say "this idiot raised your taxes" he will say "this liar broke his solemn promise" and direct millions to their opponents to advertise that the current representative is a liar that can't be trusted.

Making the promise in the first place was a mistake, made by too many people because they needed the money to win their seat. So in fact the REAL problem is that we have allowed our system to become a plutocratic "one dollar, one vote" instead of "one person, one vote" and we need to drastically change the way campaigns are financed and conducted to take the ridiculous influence of corporate and lobbyist money out of politics.

And yes, that means unions and Soros as well. If it's a problem for one, it is a problem for all.

[arthanyel]

Fair means fair - rules have to apply equally to all.