Supercommittee ‘Painfully Aware’ of Nov. 23 Deadline, Set to Work Through Weekend
EmailABC News’ John R. Parkinson and Sunlen Miller report:
The Republican co-chair of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reductions says that Democrat and GOP members continue to negotiate and “talk about new ideas” as the supercommittee makes the final sprint to next Wednesday’s deadline.
Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said that “If an agreement is not reached today, members of the Joint Select Committee, Democrats and Republicans, will meet through the weekend.”
“We are painfully, painfully aware of the deadline that is staring us in the face,” Hensarling said at a hastily arranged press conference after Republican members met earlier this morning. “We have 12 good people who have worked hard since this committee has been created to find sufficient common ground for an agreement that will simultaneously address both our nation’s jobs crisis and debt crisis, and clearly, when we have something more to report we will report.”
So far today, there has been a fury of meetings and activity surrounding the negotiations.
This morning, the three House Democrats on the panel – Reps. Chris Van Hollen, James Clyburn and Xavier Becerra – provided the House Democratic Caucus with an update on the talks.
Van Hollen, D-Md., said that he told his Democratic colleagues that the committee is “still making every effort to try to reach an agreement that is balanced.”
“[Balanced] meaning that there [are] tough cuts but also revenues for closing corporate tax loopholes, asking folks at the very top to pay a little more and that we’re still focused on trying to do something about jobs,” Van Hollen said. “We should leave no stone unturned.”
Sen. John Kerry is currently hosting a bipartisan meeting this afternoon in the Capitol with Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., Rob Portman, R-Ohio, Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa. Democratic co-chair Sen. Patty Murray was the only Senate member of the supercommittee not in attendance.
“We’re going to do whatever it takes to get an agreement,” Baucus told reporters as he headed into the meeting. “[There's] lots of different meetings. It’s whatever works.”
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We already know the outcome! The Republicans will be made into the bad guys again! Obama will not get involved because he wants the supercommittee to fail so he can blame Bush and the Republicans for all his failures!
Posted by: RadioMan77 | November 18, 2011, 1:35 pm 1:35 pm
Focused like a laser, pivoting like a bee, in a big time of crisis, Obama’s out overseas.
Posted by: deadwrestler | November 18, 2011, 1:40 pm 1:40 pm
Focused like a laser, pivoting like a bee, in a crisis, Obama’s is overseas.
Posted by: deadwrestler | November 18, 2011, 1:46 pm 1:46 pm
This committee should never have happened in the first place, it’s useless. The whole Congress should be focused on the jobs issue, not the meaningless debt and deficit.
Three months ago Boehner and the President negotiated a 4 trillion dollar deficit reduction plan. Boehner couldn’t sell it to the tea party republicans; hence we have the fiasco happening today. It’s a total waste of time and will not create job one.
Posted by: tmferretti | November 18, 2011, 2:00 pm 2:00 pm
Posted by: tmferretti—-You are going to have to put up with the fact that a sizable portion of America wants to stop spending their children’s money, and doesn’t want to pay more in taxes.
Posted by: snewsom2997 | November 18, 2011, 3:06 pm 3:06 pm
SNEWSOM2997
I’m a child of the depression, I assure you I didn’t worry about the 40 trillion dollars (in today’s terms) debt this country had in 1945. I was more concerned that my father had a job and could put a roof over my head and keep me from starving. They could have spent all the money they wanted as far as I was concerned.
It seems we depression children did alright, I’m proud to included as part of the Greatest Generation who did what they had to do and not use government spending as an excuse to watch this nation go down the tubes.
The only ones that are going to pay more taxes are the truffle eaters, and in the form of closing the loopholes and subsidies if Congress has the courage.
Posted by: tmferretti | November 18, 2011, 3:24 pm 3:24 pm
Posted by: tmferretti —You know very well that won’t be enough, you could take all the truffle eater money and still not balance the budget, you could take all the truffle eaters and everyone else that pays federal income taxes money and we would not reduce the debt. Countries do not expand forever you lived it, now is my generations turn, and we will find our own solutions.
Posted by: snewsom2997 | November 18, 2011, 3:37 pm 3:37 pm
The big question is now that republicans have said they would support some tax increases, will dems support any cutting of expenditures at all? Probably not. Whne will democrats care about the future of our children? We are not all obamatrons out here!
Posted by: jonny | November 18, 2011, 3:39 pm 3:39 pm
SNEWSOM2997
Good luck
Posted by: tmferretti | November 18, 2011, 3:55 pm 3:55 pm
JONNY
Would the future of our children be better if we turn into a third world country? Keep focusing on this deficit BS and we will. Ask the kids in Mexico, Kenya, and Somalia if they think their better off than our children.
Posted by: tmferretti | November 18, 2011, 3:58 pm 3:58 pm
Posted by: tmferretti—DO you think all of this stuff happens in a vacuum, is there some bottomless pot of gold, the money will come from future demand, when you deficit spend you are pulling demand out of the future, that means in the future they will be paying for the past instead of their present. Just like Cash For Clunkers, Just like Home Buyers credit, sure some people bought homes, but they won’t be buying homes in the future, some people bought cars, but they won’t be in the future, at least until the one they have wears out. As long as the government keeps making artificial demand by pumping out money we will be in perpetual bubbles, and they will pop.
Posted by: snewsom2997 | November 18, 2011, 4:26 pm 4:26 pm
We all know the democrats dont want to pass a bill even with a 600 billion in taxes offered by the republicans. Most intelligent people know this is Obama and the democrats strategy for the upcoming elections to try to blame the republicans for their failures. They have no positive record to run on.
Posted by: Mike | November 18, 2011, 6:47 pm 6:47 pm
tmferretti…. sometimes I think this is the shock the people in this country need.
Posted by: anotherday | November 18, 2011, 7:44 pm 7:44 pm
ABC.. FIX THE “Posting to FAST” error. I have not posted all day, I post one and I get the error. Plus, fix the page to save the NAME and EMAIL address so we don’t have to enter each time… You all have a highschool person updating your web page?? Hire someone that knows what the crap they are doing.
Posted by: FIXYOURWEBPAGE | November 18, 2011, 7:48 pm 7:48 pm
How many of these people on the “super” committee are milliionaires? I know Kerry is.
Posted by: anotherday | November 18, 2011, 8:53 pm 8:53 pm
If they’re in Congress they’re millionaires. After they get into Congress they apparently become even more wealthy engaging in insider trading if recent news reports are correct.
Posted by: whatever | November 19, 2011, 3:32 am 3:32 am
This was a joke to begin with Democrats dont want to solve this.
Posted by: daniel | November 19, 2011, 8:02 am 8:02 am
Neither the President or Congress have done anything in the last three years to solve the problems that caused this crisis! Stop spending and start cutting you idiots! NO more tax and over spend, no more bailouts of Fannie and Freddie, auto companies, states, unions, big donors, banks, etc. It’s time to fire the President and all the old guard that have been in Congress too long getting rich off taxpayers.
Posted by: Freedom | November 19, 2011, 8:08 am 8:08 am
We as a nation are a sorry bunch of spoiled brats. Take Wisconsin as an example. Government spending has put that state in debt. A Governor gets elected promising to curb spending, and the people on the government take go ballistic and think they can take it upon themselves to ignore our Republic because they don’t agree with who was elected and waste even MORE tax dollars trying to remove him from office. Such pettiness, such waste, such a disgrace. At least Wisconsin recognizes the problem and has a Governor with enough of a backbone to go after that problem.
This nation on the federal level is much much worse. There are many needless departments that exist only to make others within them wealthy, at our expense. They are very corrupt. Those federal departments have zero business even being in existence per our Constitution. Not only do they need their funding cut, they need to be terminated.
Why oh why is the government in the business of having unions for their public employees. What waste. Vote buying is all that it is. Any union today does nothing but protect and promote the lazy. That’s it. Is hard work rewarded? Nope. Seniority is. You could be the dumbest and laziest person to have ever drawn breath, yet get promoted in a union for nothing other than being there before the person hired after you. Even if that person hired later is a thousand times the worker. Then to top it all off, part of your salary goes in to the hands of politicians in bribes disguised as campaign donations. Eliminate public unions that hold taxpayers hostage.
In fact, public employees should never, and I mean never, earn more than the average wage for that geographic location. A public job should be looked at being the worst job a person could take. Why. You are a leach to society. Private sector jobs should be rewarded and held to the highest praise simply because they actually do everyone, including government, good. They pay into the system instead of drawing from it. No, the argument can’t be made that public employees are tax payers too. Don’t even go there. If a said government employee receives $100k a year and only pays $10k in taxes, the people are still in the hole $90k.
Seriously huge cuts need to be made in this country to state and federal governments. Many, and I mean thousands upon thousands, of public workers need to seek life elsewhere, the private sector.
Posted by: mad in mn | November 19, 2011, 9:45 am 9:45 am
There’s only one way we are going to get out of this recession. Someone has to spend money, the public, business or government. We can fool around with this deficit and balanced budget mess forever and it’s not going to solve the problem. The sky will not fall if we raise the debt.
The national debt has always gone up or down dependent on the economy, hence the revenue base. The republicans have focused on the debt and deficit to take attention away from the real problem, which is jobs. This committee is useless, and whatever they do, is meaningless as far as the recession is concerned. We are not Greece and Italy.
Posted by: tmferretti | November 19, 2011, 10:38 am 10:38 am
We already know the GOP won’t let the tax cuts for the wealthy expire like they let the Make Work tax breaks expire for the Middle and Lower Classes last January. And since no result may screw up the economy, the GOP is all for it – otherwise it might improve too much for their liking by Nov. 2012.
Posted by: The_Mick | November 19, 2011, 11:03 am 11:03 am
I think it is fair to say that Obama is toxic to business and as long as he and his cohorts are in Washington, this country will continue to go down the drain.
Our more liberal citizens think that government spending will get us out of this, they are wrong. Obama has spent more than any other president before him and it failed.
Posted by: Mike | November 19, 2011, 11:18 am 11:18 am
@Mad in MN: you really don’t know much about “public” employees, who are actually civil servants, like police, firemen/women, teachers, FBI, ATF, Immigration, TSA, administrators, VA docs/nurses/techs, etc., all within state and federal agencies. One place the gov’t is definitely cutting are federal jobs. Pay raises are frozen (for two years, but that will probably increase). Hiring is frozen — doing more or the same with less. Civil servants DON’T make more than the private sector. CPO actually has to include locality pay in order to UP basic pay for cost of living. I don’t know how anyone ranked below GS-12 survives in Wash D.C., and a GS-12 doesn’t automatically earn 100 grand.
As for your tax example, it’s completely wrong. I pay almost 10 grand in taxes and earn barely half of 100 grand. Then there’s health ins, life ins., retirement, state taxes, and medicare that are deductions.
Posted by: wildblue | November 19, 2011, 11:57 am 11:57 am
I don’t know why they are even considering new “tax revenue” they are supposed to be looking for ways to “CUT SPENDING!!!!!!!!”
Posted by: Jim Clemons | November 19, 2011, 1:22 pm 1:22 pm
Jim Clemons | November 19, 2011, 1:22 pm 1:22 pm
Wrong again. They are supposed to be balancing the budget. You know, like Clinton did and Bush screwed it up.
Posted by: STEVE_NJ | November 19, 2011, 3:32 pm 3:32 pm