It is a Hale-Marry pass by politicians of all stripes but there was never anyone down-field to receive it. In fact, potential receivers were running the other way.
We can thank the NO-Compromise politics of the Tea Party (once known as the Republican Party) that infects our political-body today.
(cartoon via Humor Times)"With Deadline Nearing, What Happens if Super Committee Talks Collapse?" PBS Newshour 11/18/2011
Excerpt
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): The congressional deficit super committee went into the weekend with no deal in hand and a deadline looming next Wednesday (11/23/2011). A partisan stalemate persisted over taxes and spending, as the countdown continued.
From all outward indications at the Capitol, the super committee was nowhere near completing its mission today. Republicans and Democrats on the 12-member board remain deadlocked over how to find $1.2 trillion in deficit reductions over the next decade.
"Shields, Brooks on Super Committee Gridlock, Cain's Stumble Over Libya" PBS Newshour 11/18/2011
Excerpt on Super Committee
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Mark, we got a very -- another fairly pessimistic report a few minutes from Janet Hook of The Wall Street Journal.
Is that what you are hearing, that this effort to do something about the budget deficit is not going to succeed?
MARK SHIELDS, syndicated columnist: Yes. I mean, Janet Hook is a superb reporter, and I think she's absolutely right.
I think that we are now in a situation where it's -- when the great scorer comes to write against your name, it is not whether you won or loss, but who gets the blame. I think they are both into -- both sides are into sort of postmortems and positioning, rather than -- there's no realistic hope for a grand solution at this point.
And I think, in all fairness, Judy, our political process, as we know, is pretty damn polarized. And the middle in both sides of both parties has been hollowed out to a considerable degree. And the idea that this could have been fashioned at this time, in these circumstances was probably an unrealistic hope.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What are you hearing?
DAVID BROOKS, New York Times columnist: Yes. I mean, I'm hearing the exact same thing.
I think the tragedy of it is, if it was ever going to work, it was going to work under these circumstances. The rules were rigged to make a deal as possible as -- as possible as possible, which is to say there was going to be a clean vote on the House. They were going to meet in private. They had this sword of Damocles hanging over them. And they still couldn't reach a deal.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And still didn't...
DAVID BROOKS: And still -- and so it's a history of really 10 or 15 years of potential moments where we could have -- somebody could have made a deal with doing some spending cuts, some tax increases, jam it all together in whatever form you want to do. And every think tank has their own version.
But the two sides are just too far apart. And, as Mark says, there is no center. And so, you know, they hope the election will solve it. That is what everybody is saying on the Hill. I'm a little dubious the election -- why should this election solve it, when all the other elections haven't solved it.
So the short answer is, welcome, Greece. We're going to be Greece.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So -- are you serious?
DAVID BROOKS: Of course, yes. No, I firmly believe that. I think, in 10 years -- I don't know when it will happen, but I'm very pessimistic that we will actually have the sort of deal we need. And at some point, what is happening in the Europe will happen here.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Mark, right now, if they don't reach a deal...
MARK SHIELDS: If they don't reach a deal, I mean, it's not the end of the world.
I mean, it was written -- David's right. It was well-written to achieve a deal. But one of the real components of its reaching a deal was that if they didn't reach a deal, there would be $1.2 trillion in cuts that they kick in, in January 2013, and that Social Security and Medicare are exempt as the deal is written. So that's going to happen.
If nothing does happen legislatively, if the president is as stalwart as he insists he's going to be, the Bush tax cuts will expire. OK, so that is -- that expires for everybody. It's not simply for the $250,000 and above. So you're talking about over the next 10 years some $7 trillion in revenue, just looking at it that way narrowly, Judy, that would be coming into the government, as well as the cuts that would be imposed.
So it's not -- you know, it's not an impossible situation. It's not an ideal situation, but it's not impossible.
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