Super Committee is a Super Failure! The super committee idea looked good in headlines — maybe only in headlines. The committee was to produce a package of deficit-reduction measures — spending cuts or tax increases or both — to be voted on by Congress without amendment or filibuster.
Before and during the talks, Democrats said they would agree to significant savings from benefit programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security only if Republicans would agree to a hefty dose of higher taxes, including cancellation of Bush-era cuts at upper-income brackets.
In contrast, the GOP side said spending, not revenue, was the cause of the government's chronic budget deficits, and insisted that the tax cuts approved in the previous decade all be made permanent.
The panel's failure marked the end of a yearlong effort by divided government to grapple with budget deficits that lawmakers of both parties and economists of all persuasions agreed were unsustainable. What follows is my cartoon depiction of the "Super Congress!"