The recent battle over raising the debt ceiling ended in a bi-partisan agreement raising the debt ceiling. The Federal government avoided defaulting on our debt and the Treasury has funds to pay all the bills. Crisis averted, right? The answer is yes – and no. Yes because the agreement raised the debt ceiling by 2.1 trillion dollars, allowing the Treasury to service our debt and borrow to pay all the bills. No, because all Congress did was to, using the most over-used phrase existing today, “kick the can down the road”.
This so-called “agreement” provided no certainties at all. The debt ceiling agreement simply postponed meaningful actions on reducing the national deficit and reducing economic uncertainties. Furthermore, it postponed these actions in a way that makes it uncertain any thoughtful and reasonable actions will occur to address the national debt. The agreement set up a convoluted and unprecedented process that is highly likely to fail, and failure will result in “automatic” spending cuts across the entire Federal budget.
Specifically, the agreement created a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, to be composed of 12 people, six from the Senate, and six from the House of Representatives. The media is now referring to this Joint Select Committee as “the Super Committee” or “the Super Congress”. Republican leaders will appoint three of the Senators and three Representatives; Democratic leaders will appoint three of the Senators and three Representatives.
The Committee’s charter is to provide recommendations and legislative language to reduce the national deficit by $1.5 trillion in the period 2012 through 2021. The Committee must vote on the Committee’s recommendations no later than 23 November 2011. Approval requires the “yes” votes of at least seven Committee members. If the Committee actually approves the recommendations, the Committee must submit the recommendations to the President, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House, and the majority and minority leaders of both houses of Congress no later than 2 December 2011.
If the Committee submits recommendations, both houses of Congress must use expedited procedures limiting debate to vote on whether to pass or reject the Committee’s recommendations no later than 23 December 2011. If both houses of Congress do not pass the Committee’s recommendations to achieve the $1.5 trillion deficit reduction by 15 January 2012, then draconian measures kick in. Specifically, cuts of $1.2 trillion will “automatically” trigger with half the reduction, $600 billion, coming out of the security function (i.e., defense) programs and the remaining half coming out of non-security (i.e., everything except defense) programs. These cuts will be like meat cleaver swipes, not controlled, skillful scalpel cuts, with the Office of Management and Budget charged with implementing “across the board” cuts of all programs.
Our politicians simply could not come to any agreement, so they resorted to a Cold War doctrine or concept, the Mutually Assured Destruction Doctrine. This essentially boils down to, “You cannot destroy me without me destroying you”. If this Committee cannot agree or if the Committee’s recommendations are not accepted, then defense programs (considered dear to the Republicans) and non-defense programs (considered dear to the Democrats) will both suffer huge “automatic” cuts.
That, as briefly as I can summarize it, is the purpose of the “Super Congress”, the “Super Committee”, or the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. If you are interested in learning more, you may go peruse the 74 pages of “The Budget Control Act of 2011″ for yourself. Just type it into any search engine and start reading.
Let us wish the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction luck in their almost impossible quest to find a solution to the national deficit. They seek a solution that Congress, as a whole, was unable to find despite months and months of debate and negotiations. They seek this solution under almost impossible time constraints. This Committee’s goals may be as close to “Mission Impossible” as it gets – and the future of this country may well depend on their success.