Remember the good old days when the ‘govern’ part of government actually meant our elected reps actually ‘govern’ed rather than just spew no compromise, take-no-prisoners blowhard rhetoric? Good times, good times…

It’s one week from a drop-dead moment for the supercommittee, and the powerful panel is at risk of failing, adding yet another black mark on what is already the most unpopular Congress in modern history.

There isn’t a shred of bill language circulating publicly and no scent of a bipartisan deal before a Nov. 23 deadline to show the public how a panel granted such sweeping authority is trying to solve America’s great fiscal crisis.

Even worse for Republicans, there seems to be a growing civil war on the right over the idea of tax revenues. Rank-and-file conservatives have always been suspicious of the supercommittee, and they’ve started to go public with their complaints, warning against the tax revenue proposals coming from their own party.
[…]
Supercommittee co-chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), speaking bluntly to a closed House Republican meeting Tuesday said any deal that the panel produces will either be an “abject [failure] or a ‘kiss your sister agreement.’”

Oddly enough, a wide majority of Americans expect them to fail.



  1. riding razorbacking says:

    WTF is a “kiss your sister agreement?!?!”
    are these politicians all from Arkansas.
    why are all of these guys trying to say lame soundbites that they hope will get them on the next underground record….
    its not like anything these twists come up with will work… some opposing legal team will say they didn’t come to these agreements via correct channels

    • msbpodcast says:

      are these politicians all from Arkansas“?

      Then it would be a fuck your sister agreement.

      Instead they’re going to fuck all of us.

      You know they’re all lying scumbags.

      That’s just the way it works in Washington DC.

      The part that worries me is that they’re running out of money for lube

  2. dusanmal says:

    This all charade have been made in order to steal power from newly elected TeaParty driven representatives (by the establishment on both sides). The only long term answer is to kick out more establishment in next elections.
    Resolution should be trivial: actual cuts of same percentage over the everything and freezing of growth of Government on a decade long scale. Just 1% would do what Supercommy is asked to do. 10% would do miracles.
    As for taxes – they must be left out of any consideration and new tax system built from scratch and with built-in restrictions on how such revenue can be spent. Tax system have failed and any further tinkering with it “as-is” just makes it worse.

    • Olo Baggins of Bywater says:

      Except that…austerity never works during a slow economy. We’re looking at a lost decade thanks to the teabaggers.

  3. Dallas says:

    We’ve digressed to the point where politics has now rendered government legislation ineffectual.

    The United TeaPublican Party is determined to defeat the negro by paralyzing government.

    It was a good idea to have automatic cuts kick in. They should have included ALL Congress pay and term limit cuts as well for failure.

    • Drive by Poster says:

      “The United TeaPublican Party is determined to defeat the negro by paralyzing government. ”

      Apparently, Dallas has been smoking crack and dropping acid again (or maybe just watching MSNBC – same difference). Where the fuck did your racism angle come from other than your imagination?

      From what I read, the only side to offer even a tentative (minor) concession towards the others were the Republicans. The Democrats simply walked away without making any such offer of a concession, no matter how marginal or even imaginary.

      Not that I ever expected anything to come of it. Narrowing discussions down to just 6 people made sure that all the lobbyists and special interest groups in the nation focused their efforts on just those 6 people.

      • Olo Baggins of Bywater says:

        Want to see a bunch of racism directed at the president? Go to foxnews.com, look for an Obama story, and hang out the comments section for five minutes.

      • tcc3 says:

        Can you link to “what i read” ? Cause I keep reading about Democrats offering to slash Medicaid/care and SociSec over and above the original Bowles/Simpson recommendation and Obama’s “grand bargain” from this summer. In the face of these concessions Republicans are still intransigent about any comparable revenue increases.

        Even as you chide Dallas for “smoking crack” your staement is a Fox News fantasy.

        • Drive by Poster says:

          Technically I could find the link, but I don’t care to crawl through days worth of DrudgeReport headlines. It was posted the day of or day after the Dems left. If you really want it, you now know where to look.

          As far as other offers the Dems may or may not have offered, I wasn’t including what the other 529 members of Congress did – only the “Super Committee” was under discussion until you tossed in other groups. And I wouldn’t have cared if they did do to a lack of belief in their sincerity about such offers on my part. In my experience in the past 15 years of watching such proposed deals, most of the cuts to welfare offered by Dems are purely wonderful sounding smoke and mirror illusions that amount to no actual cuts when the numbers are crunched. Certainly the Dems always screamed bloody murder en mass every single time the Repubs tried to simply reduce the rate of increase in Welfare spending in the past decade or so. There’s no reason to believe that the Congressional Dems have even slightly modified their stripes, let alone changed them.

          • tcc3 says:

            I was also speaking of the actions of the super-committee.

            You post a false statement and then hide behind “Its too hard to find supporting evidence.”

            Then you further weaken your own argument with “Well even if it is true, I don’t believe it.”

            Be willfully ignorant if you want, but lets not pretend it equals fact.

  4. Jim says:

    Why do you insinuate the position that Republicans are behind the take no compromise approach? Both parties are equally responsible for the impasse. The fundamental problem with American politics is our “two-party” system, which was not in place until the 20th century. We need to have a multi-party (at least three) system so that a coalition must be forged. And quit your incessant rantings that the Republicans are not compromising, when the Democrats are protecting their turf to the death as well.

    • BigBoyBC says:

      I agree, partisan politics is at its worst, and neither side has the moral, ethical, or legal high-ground.

    • The Monster's Lawyer says:

      If the Dems are taking the no compromise approach, they must be doing it by being passive aggressive. I haven’t heard one get on the boob-toob and spew the “our way or no way” like I’ve heard countless Reps espouse.

      • LibertyLover says:

        Yep. Instead they are saying, “No Cuts without Tax Increases.”

        This doesn’t really make sense to me.

        If you raise taxes, you don’t need to cut social programs.

        If you cut social programs, you don’t need to raise taxes.

        They just want another “Neener Neener” moment like they got from Bush I while at the same time appearing to be compromising.

        I’m not a fan of the pugs, either, but if we can stop the spending in its tracks, I’m ok with their hardheadedness.

    • tcc3 says:

      Yes how dare they insist on a compromise. They should just concede, and let the Republicans have their way with no concessions.

      None of the proposals will eliminate the deficit, so LL’s statement isn’t really true. Some believe that we should just eliminate the social programs, blank check the military, and lower taxes. Others believe in the social programs, think we spend too much on the military, and don’t raise enough revenue.

      An actual compromise would include cuts to both social progs and the military as well as a tax increase. Everybody gives a little, everybody gets a little.

      Insisting on a concession to reach a compromise position isnt being intransigent, its how negotiation works.

      • LibertyLover says:

        None of the proposals will eliminate the deficit, so LL’s statement isn’t really true.

        Not in the first year, but it would be eliminated in two years and start paying down the debt then.

        Not in the 10 years the republicrats would have you believe. Inflation will outpace any 10 year savings plan they come up with.

    • Grandpa says:

      People just don’t get it. We didn’t have these rediculous deficits until GWB gave tax cuts to the wealthy and created two expensive foreign wars. Now the Republicans are blaming Social Security! It’s just common sense. End the wars and end the tax giveaways. Leave our Social Security alone. Cutting it to get some of the tax breaks back is unacceptable!

  5. moebeans says:

    Anyone with half a brain expected them to fail. (Doesn’t matter if they only have the left half or right half.)

  6. jpfitz says:

    Why is SS on the table if it is solvent. We all pay into fica and it’s not a choice. If you paid into a private retirement fund and then that money was taken away from you to pay for government overspending would you just accept the loss?

    http://aging.senate.gov/crs/ss3.pdf

  7. #16- bobbo, OCCUPY DVORAK: what if "we-all" number our own posts and post seriatim ourselves? says:

    “blowhard rhetoric” //// Sums up just about everything.

  8. Grandpa says:

    Don’t kid yourself. It was never supposed to succeed. This gives both parties permission to screw us good automatically.

  9. deowll says:

    I thought everybody with a working brain expected them to fail from the moment the stupid committee idea was announced.


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