The super committee is bound to fail and it always was destined to fail, because the Republicans are refusing to compromise. All of the Republicans on the Super committee have vowed never to raise taxes for any reason, but it will be impossible to come up with the needed savings simply by draconian budget cuts.
Every economist knows that the only way to balance the budget is with a combination of budget cuts and revenue increases along with smart investments to grow the economy. Growing the economy is very important because that means more jobs which means less people dependent on government services and more people paying taxes, which reduces the deficit.
http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/art...So what happens if the super committee fails? If it fails there is supposed to be something terrible that happens to each side. They call that Sequestration.
What the Republicans consider terrible, is that the Military budget would be slashed by $600 billion. I think that would be great because the military budget doubled after 2001. We spend more on the military than the rest of the world combined, and we are ending our wars, and have no super powers to oppose us. There is more waste and fraud in the military than the rest of the government combined so that is where most cutting should take place. If Republicans had their way they would increase the military budget..
What the Democrats consider terrible, is that $600 billion of cuts will have to be made to discretionary programs. I really don't think that would be that bad either because if the Republicans had had their way All of the $1.2 billion in cuts would have come from discretionary programs.
The other reason I don't think this will be too bad, is that there is a whole slew of programs that are exempt from the sequestration cuts. Medicare and Social security are exempt as well as most retirement programs and the funding for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/u...What is Really Really good about the failure of the super committee is that the Bush Tax cuts will automatically expire, and that increase in revenue will provide almost half of the savings the super committee was supposed to come up with in the first place. If the Republicans had their way the Bush Tax Cuts would become permanent and they would lower the taxes on the rich from 35% to 28%.
http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/art...The final reason that I think the super committee failure is a good thing, is that the public will see that the entire reason for that failure is the intransigence of the Republican Party. People now know that they are willing to destroy the nation to protect the wealth of the 1% and to make Obama look bad.
Fortunately the Republican Party is not blessed with brains, and their hatred of Obama and their obsession with their ideology is more important than facts or economic reality.
The American people will place the blame for the destruction of the economy and the obstruction of the recovery on the Republicans as they should.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/20...
UPDATE - 6 months ago
The failure of the "Super Committee" is good for 99% of America because it was based on a false assumption, that growth fiscal responsibility could be brought about by austerity measures that would effect only the poor and middle class.
Fiscal Sanity can only be brought about with shared sacrifice. The Corporations and the Rich need to suffer a little bit like the rest of the nation is.
Wall Street created the problem, why shouldn't they help solve the problem with a tiny .03% financial Transaction Tax. Like Rep. Peter Defazio's bill?
http://www.registerguard.com/web/opinion...Now that the committee has failed maybe we can work for actual change like saving medical costs by going to a single payer system that would cut costs in half.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/11...