Despite pessimism, supercommittee members make last-ditch effort at deal

Supercommittee Co-Chair Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. is pursued by reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Nov. 21,2011, as she leaves her office to go to the White House.

/ AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Updated: 3:32 p.m. ET

Amid widespread pessimism over the congressional supercommittee's prospects of reaching an agreement to reduce the deficit, Sen. John Kerry on Monday offered up a new proposal that would include a trillion-dollar revenue increase, a Republican leadership aide tells CBS News, although there is no indication that other Democrats on the committee are behind that proposal.

A majority of the committee members met Monday in last-ditch talks aimed at coming to an eleventh-hour compromise, even while aides said they were skeptical that a deal could be made in such short a time.

In an interview with CBS News, Kerry would not comment on the alleged proposal but emphasized that "we're really under a gun" to come to a solution.

"I think it's pretty imperative to get done what we -- I think there's a time limit on us that's coming down to hours because there has to be a filing 48 hours ahead of time so we're really under a gun," he said. 

"We are just having a continued discussion - in good faith I hope," Kerry added, speaking to reporters as he returned to his office.

Meanwhile, Patty Murray, Democratic co-chair of the supercommittee, told reporters the committee was "still working" as she joined the bipartisan meeting of committee members in fellow Democratic Sen. John Kerry's office Monday afternoon.

Supercommittee failure gives both sides what they want

Still, one Democratic aide with knowledge of discussions said there was "no sense of progress" despite the continued negotiations.

"Though talks continue, there is no sense of progress," the aide said. "The Republicans are simply not budging and this appears to be going nowhere."

Technically, the 12-person bipartisan group of lawmakers has until Wednesday at midnight to reach an agreement for reducing the deficit by $1.2 trillion, as was tasked to them as part of Congress's August deal to raise the debt limit. But the members are legally required to make their plan public at least 48 hours before voting on it -- which means that the committee must come to a deal by Monday night.

Murray, along with Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., are among the seven members who have convened in Kerry's personal office for the meeting, which started at about late morning Monday.

If no deal is reached, $1.2 trillion is set to be automatically cut from areas like Medicare and national security in 2013 - an alternative which was designed to serve as an incentive for compromise, and which both parties say they want to avoid.

Sen. Baucus, as he joined the group at around 12:30 p.m. told reporters "there's always hope" with regards to a deal.

"We're having last-minute discussions," Van Hollen told CBS News, adding that there could be more meetings throughout the day.

Still, pessimism continues to pervade talk surrounding the negotiations, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pointed fingers Monday for what is increasingly being seen as a disastrous congressional experiment.

Republicans on Monday decried what they described as President Obama's limited involvement in the negotiations and the Democrats' insistence on raising taxes. Democrats, meanwhile, pointed to the GOP's refusal to raise taxes as a sign that the party is beholden to anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.

In a press briefing Monday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney deflected criticism that the president was insufficiently involved in the negotiations, noting that while the president put forth a blueprint for a deficit reduction plan, "there wasn't a seat at that table, that I'm aware of, for a member of the administration."

"We were all fall in contact with members of Congress through various liaisons here at the White House, contact with members of the committee," Carney told reporters. "But let's be clear about it: Congress assigned itself a job; assigned 12 of its own members a task -- a task that wasn't really that difficult to achieve if there was a willingness to compromise; if there was a willingness to take a balanced approach, an approach that is supported by a majority of the American people. Congress needs to meet its responsibilities."

He urged Congress to continue to work on a plan rather than preemptively assigning blame for the committee's failure.

"This committee was established by an act of Congress. It was comprised of members of Congress. Instead of pointing fingers and playing the blame game, Congress should act, fulfill its responsibility," Carney said.

And while Carney admitted that the committee's failure to reach a deal would result in cuts to the defense budget that are "much deeper than we think are wise," he declined to suggest that the White House might reverse the so-called sequester.

Congress "needs to hold itself to account," he said. "And also should not then try to undo the consequences of their own failure, the consequences that they themselves passed into law. They should do the right thing and come together."

[nuscpb]

Supercommittee = Suffercommittee. Don't we see it coming with no comprising.

[dantom39]

A meeting of our millionaires in congress an nothing gets done. Who da thunk it.

[epik_al]

First of all I want to express my support and respect for Steve Kroft and Sixty Minutes for some of the most powerful journalism practiced in perhaps 20 years. Their reporting on the legality of congretional insider trading and the true power of money and big business financed lobbyist Grover Norquist deserves the gratitude of every American.
He asked all the right questions and for me at least it was clear that while no one wants higher taxes, the money financing Norquist has the goal of making the richest richer on the backs of the middles class and the poorest Americans.
For those in Congress and the Senate even thinking about doing the right thing in the super committee, 'you will pay'. To expect compromise with the weight of the Norquist threat was an unreal expectation.
And let's not overlook the motivation to lower taxes for our poor legislators benefiting so handsomely from insider trading. how could they possibly resist lowering the capital gains tax, knowing how it can leverage haw it can leverage those insider gains.
The foxes are running the hen house from the Congress, to the Senate , to the Supreme Court that made Norquist legal. I'm not sure what it will take to bring about constructive meaningful change, but your legislators need to know Grover needs to return to the Muppets and legislators need to work to enhance the well being of all the people, not just those who write the big check!

[hhandyman]

Its as if congress was held on Red egg shells and all congresspeople were a group of mad stampeding bulls head butting each other as hard as they could hit and as loud as they could make noise to look busy but only mire up in more messy broken eggs accomplishing nothing but more future problems for everyone in the country.

[levelheadedtoo]

You would think this thing is a religion because people aren't being allowed to think for themselves. These buffoons go into a closed room and push the least qualified out to tell everyone what ins't happening. We know exactly what's going on in those closed meetings. They are arguing about who will be blamed for the results. The GOP wants the Democrats to take the fall and the dems want the GOP to accept it because the comittee was their idea. No one wants to tell the poor, seniors , students and soldiers they are screwed again.

We need a citizens comittee to fix this debt issue. Most of use can manage this problem. We look at our bills and look at our checkbook. If we have enough to pay we write a check. If not, we cut back and ask for a raise to cover it. Congress is acting like someone hooked on drugs and it has been asked to hold the dope. You know they can't resist using it even if they can't pay.

We all know the worst kind people in the world are politicians. How many would trust a politician alone with their children, pets, cash, computer or iphone. That's right no one!! So why would we trust them to trust to manage our country.

[Zann-Zel]

Maybe the most qualified would be an ordinary citizen who has experience Juggling each and every paycheck to paycheck to survive!

[Well_You_Aint_Me]

Simple problem simple solution...Fire all 100 Senators and House Members and the POTUS. And take away all their entitlements and no golden parachutes.

Start over from scratch.

[Zann-Zel]

And vote One Issue at a time - with every American having a vote - to hell with "representatives" who are only corrupted by who hands them the most money!

[gruven13777]

Looks like the obvious solution now is to create a Super -DUPER- Committee who will solve this problem.

[shurch4truth]

...The King has not clothes

...Republicans bow to Grover Norquist

...Republicans do not control themselves....Grover does that for them

[TN-Trawlerman]

There is no doubt that there is government waste, programs that are marginally if at all necessary, far to many individuals gaming the social support systems (especially health care and social security) and these things need to be cut out. However, this is not enough. We are at the lowest tax burden since 1950, and have no business being there. Search up a graph of National Debt as a percentage of GDP, and you will clearly see that it ceased 30 years of steady reduction from the high of 120% after WW2 in 1981. This sudden turn from a decreasing debt ratio to an increasing one is thanks to the massive reduction of marginal tax rates on the top earners that Reagan brought in with his "trickle down economics". In addition to the necessary government program cuts above, also the tax rate needs to be returned to roughly the average that we had during the prosperous period from 1950 to 1980. Democrats need to accept the cuts and Republicans need to accept a sensible tax rate structure that is neither radical nor new. We live for decades with it and put men on the moon. I have seen and heard the President say he is willing to cut into the so-called entitlements, but I have not heard the GOP say they are willing to revert to historical tax rates.

[MurdochSucks]

During one of the primary debates every candidate said they would vote against 10-1 spending cuts to tax increases. A balanced budget is not unobtainable, we just need to throw out the Republicans and the Blue Dog Democrats and replace them with real progressives.

[retm-w]

So now the seniors who apid into the Social Security sytem all their working lives and paid into medicare are gaming the system. Your solution is to not pay the seniors their SS or Medicare, you sound like a true republican, take their money then give nothing back to them.

[carolo43]

What a big surprise, huh? Everyone out here knew this "Super Committee" could not reach an agreement. We had a committee of Republicans and Democrats a year ago and after those 14 talked for weeks, it was decided by them that the Bush Tax Cuts needed to expire and that tax cuts while paying for wars did not work. They also pointed the Medicare and Bush signing that Plan D with no funds to pay for it.