Supercommittee? An opinion roundup

Washington Post:

Absent some intervening, cataclysmic event, the debt-reduction can has been kicked once again -- this time, until after the election. At that point, the Bush tax cuts will be on the verge, once again, of expiring -- at the end of December 2012.

Unless it is defused, the mandated "trigger" of $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts, spread evenly between domestic and military spending, will take effect in January 2013.

Can the political system rouse itself, in the face of those threats, to avert the harm? The lesson of the supercommittee is not a happy one.

Individual actors in the latest drama tried to rewrite the inevitable ending. Some Republicans began the process of accepting the need for new tax revenue. Some Democrats were willing to accept entitlement cuts.

That the lawmakers were nonetheless unable to reach agreement does not bode well for future negotiations. The 2012 election may produce a change in the occupant of the White House and control of one or both houses of Congress, but it is not likely to produce a clear mandate for either party's vision of debt reduction.

The compromise that proved elusive for the supercommittee will remain necessary. Perhaps it can be achieved in the action-forcing context of the trigger and expiring tax cuts.

Los Angeles Times:

Conceived in cowardice, Congress' deficit reduction "supercommittee" has lived down to expectations.

Even if it had succeeded in cutting its goal of $1.2 trillion over the next decade, it would have fallen short of the $4 trillion reduction over the same period that experts say is necessary to right the economy.

But an agreement by the supercommittee would have been a significant first step toward fiscal responsibility.

The outlines of an agreement were well-known: revenue increases coupled with significant cuts in entitlement spending. The wisdom of such a compromise was obvious to everyone but the two parties and their representatives on the committee.

What makes the supercommittee's collapse so frustrating is that a consensus seemed to be building in favor of deficit reduction.

It was reflected in the report of a presidential commission and in negotiations between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Now, with an election looming, the possibility of change seems remote.

That isn't just disappointing, it's shameful.

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Chicago Tribune:

You were wrong, the ratings agency was spot-on.

The inability of the so-called congressional supercommittee to reach a deal on deficit reductions isn't a failure of those 12 lawmakers alone.

It's the latest flop in a refusal to govern that embarrasses the president and every member of Congress. Their collective humiliation should have grown last week when the nation's debt topped $15 trillion.

Make your own guess on whether all of this will encourage, or discourage, hiring by employers who see all that debt and fear for the nation's economic stability.

Make your own guess, too, on whether, as markets and ratings agencies dismiss the United States as the dysfunctional Europe West, more of your tax dollars will go to interest payments on debt held by China and all our other lenders.

Why, then, did we think the Deficits Dozen would confront the real challenge -- entitlement programs and other "payments to individuals" that in 2010 devoured 66 percent of the federal budget.

We have 50 million Americans on Medicaid, 46 million on Medicare, 52 million on Social Security, with millions more drawing from disability, nutrition and other programs.

All well and good. But with only a relative handful of baby boomers now turning 65, today's enormous entitlement costs will only explode.

Yet our leaders in Washington, facing these inevitabilities plus the visible plight of drowning-in-debt Europe, have served up ... next to nothing.

And while the temptation to cast partisan blame is irresistible in Washington this week -- have you glanced at a news channel? -- we aren't buying the notion that heroes of either party walk among us.

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Kansas City Star:

The nation's economic predicament calls for sacrifice. Middle-income Americans must accept adjustments in entitlements, and very wealthy households must return to 1990s tax rates.

That is not too much to ask. Tragically, infuriatingly, the committee of 12, mirroring congressional gridlock writ large, cannot muster the courage to do so.

It always comes back to leadership at the top. Slash-and-burn budgets (with across-the-board cuts) are a flat-out stupid way to do it.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Another embarrassing dive to the canvas by the people voters sent to Congress.

The talks faltered mainly over Republican intransigence on higher taxes. But Democrats hardly covered themselves in glory. They were reluctant to do enough to impose fiscal discipline on entitlement programs -- especially Medicare.

A Democratic offer would have reduced deficits by $3 trillion over 10 years by cutting spending and raising taxes.

A Democratic proposal included as much as $500 billion of savings in health care programs, including higher premiums for wealthy Medicare beneficiaries and measures that would have reduced cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security beneficiaries.

So did this: Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., offered a package that included $300 billion of new tax revenue -- a breakthrough in Republican thinking. But Democrats balked because the plan would have permanently reduced taxes for all taxpayers, and that decision derailed the talks once again.

The long-term fiscal problem is nightmarish. If nothing is done, by 2035, the nation's debt will reach the unsustainable level of 187 percent of national output.

Anything more than 60 percent hinders economic growth; 187 percent kills it. On that day, U.S. finances will look little better than those of Greece or Italy do today.

But the nation also has a short-term problem with growth. The supercommittee, by failing even to extend unemployment benefits and the payroll tax holiday -- both had been expected -- failed the growth test as well as the deficit exam.

Will it take a crisis for America's "leaders" to act? Or, even then, will they take a dive?

Philadelphia Inquirer:

An intriguing proposal was made Monday by two former Democratic pollsters who believe President Obama has become so hobbled by Republican opposition that he cannot govern effectively and should abandon his bid for reelection.

The failure of the congressional supercommittee to trim the federal deficit is the latest example of Obama's inability to make a deal with Republicans.

Writing for the Boston Globe, former Sen. John E. Sununu, R-N.H., blamed Obama. "In a brilliant stroke of irony, the president lectured European leaders recently that the euro crisis 'is a problem of political will.' This from a president who ignored his own deficit commission," said Sununu.

It's true that Obama gave too little support to the earlier bipartisan commission, which in a divided vote recommended cutting the federal deficit by $4 trillion by 2020 with a cap on discretionary spending, a tax-code overhaul, and changes to Social Security, including raising the retirement age -- not exactly choices favored by his Democratic base.

With the tax cuts scheduled to expire next year, that issue could become the key to the presidential election -- which is exactly what some people want. "We'll run against their tax increase, and we'll crush them," said political strategist Grover Norquist, whose antitax pledge has been taken by many Republican officeholders.

Such comments are why former Jimmy Carter pollster Patrick H. Caddell and Bill Clinton pollster Douglas E. Schoen wrote a Wall Street Journal column that said Obama should follow the example of Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson, who "accepted the reality that they could not effectively govern the nation if they sought re-election."

It's true that it won't get any easier for Obama. But his foes aren't likely to compromise just because he wouldn't be the Democrat running for the White House.