Supercommittee Deadline Closer Than It Seems
EmailThe bipartisan Supercommittee is nine days away from the Nov. 23 deadline to get a deal passed to cut $1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion from the deficit over the next decade.
But its members are operating under a much closer deadline – one that is less than a week away.
The Budget Control Act, enacted last August to put an end to the debt-ceiling crisis, prohibits the Supercommittee from voting on a plan that has not been made available to the public and to the Congressional Budget Office for 48 hours before the vote.
Boil this down and do the math. This means that in order for the Supercommittee to reach a majority vote by midnight Nov. 23, members need to come up with a plan and make its language public by midnight Nov. 21. In other words, by next Monday.
Further complicating the tight deadline is the need for the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to score the proposal before the 12-member Supercommittee puts it to a vote.
Usually, it takes the CBO about a week to score a measure of this size. But aides on both the Democratic and Republican sides involved in the Supercommittee negotiations say that the CBO is ready to turn a score faster than on its usual timetable — as it did for the health care law.
Last month, while speaking at the Council on Foreign Relation in New York, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf said that the groundwork was already being set to advance a score quicker in the event that the Supercommittee pushes the deadline to the last possible moment.
“What we are doing right now very, very intensively is giving Supercommittee members and staff estimates of the budgetary effects of different proposals that they are considering,” Elmendorf said in October.
Aides say that close consultation with the CBO has continued throughout the process so that when a final deal is written the CBO will not be starting from scratch in order to get the plan scored and voted on before the Nov. 23 deadline.
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First of all there should be no Super Committee. Debating spending cuts in the middle of a recession is insanity.
If these idiots insist on this committee, it’s going to all come down to basics.
The democrats have stepped on the political third rail and put cuts to Medicare and Social Security on the table. This will cost them elderly votes but shows they are willing to do what is good for their country.
The republicans refuse to even discuss revenue increases. They have signed pledges to idiots like Grover Norquist and the Koch brothers to do nothing. Is obvious who is responsible for the grid lock.
When they fail and 1 trillion dollars is cut from defense, hundreds of thousands more people will be out of work. Those people will but the blame exactly where it lies, on the tea party republicans.
Posted by: tmferretti | November 15, 2011, 12:20 pm 12:20 pm
Eight days to go, but nothing enacted until 2013. That’s a long time and we know
who ever controls congress and the senate can change things after 2012 elections.
All this date will do is spook the stock market some more. At least the 99% will be happy about that. And let us forget the supreme court is going to rock the stock market next summer with Obamacare decision. Bury your cash and load your shotgun,
mines always loaded. the next seven and a half months are going to be a stormy ride. Stock investors except those in congress are going to look like deer on opening
day of shotgun season.
Posted by: deadwrestler | November 15, 2011, 12:38 pm 12:38 pm