The Congressional “Super-Committee” (that really isn’t all that super) is preparing to announce that they “blew it” and have failed to come up with ANY cuts to the budget whatsoever. So now they’re wasting time, arguing over how they’re going to announce that they’ve failed.
Are we really all that surprised? This is Congress we’re talking about, after all.
If they were serious about this, they would have begun meeting three months ago, when the “super-committee” was announced. They just started meeting a week or two ago. The only thing super about this committee is the super-hype. I hope they all get voted out of office.
And so should any Congress person who votes to remove the triggers, which were put in place by the last budget ceiling bill. If anything, they should be ADDING to the triggers that will go into effect in 2013 (which was also a mistake.) They should be going into effect the day after Thanksgiving. That would give the cuts some teeth.
Unfortunately, the military will take the brunt of the cuts, amounting to some $600 billion. It’s unfortunate. The military has a lot of rebuilding to do to get into trim to fight the next war, as they should be, and always are, preparing for. Getting out of Iraq will help the military do that, and will also help our budget.
Hard choices will need to be made, but not by this Congress or President. They’ve wasted far too much time; we’re at 101% of GDP, and it’s getting worse. Talk about lame ducks---we’ve got 535 of them in Congress.
I’d be in favor of a financial blockade of all 535 members. No contributions to any of their campaigns until they come up with a way to make steep cuts, in the trillions, not in the billions like the Democrats want. It would only work if established donors joined this blockade.
When austerity comes to this country, it isn’t going to be pretty. The government should make the changes now, while there’s still a choice over what to cut. Because the day is coming when entire departments will be slashed, and the national government budget crashed, and the prized entitlements that the Democrats are so viciously defending will go away too. I would think they’d want to make changes now, so that their entire program, whatever it is, doesn’t collapse.
This Congress must not delete or delay the triggers. The only thing they should change is the start date—move it from 1/1/2013, to 1/1/2012.
That’ll never happen either.
