SUPERCOMMITTEE FAILS - CURRENT BUDGET CAN REDUCE DEFICIT MORE THAN 'GO BIG'

The experts over at the Concord Coalition do good work on the federal budget.  They are budget hawks and well worth listening to.

They note that doing nothing will balance the federal budget (excluding interest costs) by 2014.

Doing nothing unleashes automatic tax increases and smaller spending cuts.  Past tax reductions are scheduled to expire as is the "doc fix" which temporarily increases Medicare payments to physicians.

The automatic tax hikes may be part of the reason that SuperCommittee Dems didn't negotiate.

Concord is promoting strict pay-as-you-go rules as a one path toward a budget fix. It's a piece Washington needs - crisis or no.

http://www.concordcoalition.org/issue-briefs/2011/1122/super-committee-gave-congress-cant

SUPERCOMMITTEE SELF-SABOTAGE?

Democrats want the SuperCommittee to fail, according to Steve Moore of the Wall Street Journal.  He spoke with four of the six Republican members and reports that the six Democratic members have not offered any serious entitlement reform - which is where the big bucks lie.

His sources say Democrats have been offering less than $1 of spending cuts for each $1 of tax increases.  The bipartisan Simpson Bowles commission last year, widely thought to be an excellent model for the SuperCommittee, came up with $3 of spending cuts for each dollar of tax increases. 

Moore explains that election year politics are getting in the way of a deficit reduction deal.  The logic is that if Republicans do not agree to a SuperCommittee deal, Obama can run against a "Do Nothing" Congress.  If the Republicans DO agree to tax cuts, that is expected to weaken Republican unity enough that Obama can romp to victory.  lET'S 

Previously federal, state, and local governments have put each family on the hook for $800,000 of government debt beyond the $1.3 million in taxes that a family earning $75,000 yearly will already pay over its career. 

Time is ticking toward the next financial crisis. The political clock is running much slower than the economic clock.

Could it be that representative democracy has run aground, laden with special interests, dreamy ideals, self-righteousness, and blind ambition? 

For this observor, more direct democracy is growing in appeal.