The Supercommittee; One More Super Ruse

Four more days till Americans likely are dismayed once again, this time by the Supercommittee.

The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction was created as part of last summer's deal to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its sovereign debt. Its name was chosen as sounding more reassuring than the Joint Select Committee on Kicking the Can down the Road.

The committee is charged, by Wednesday, with presenting a ten-year plan to Congress outlining at least $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions through a combination of increased revenue, tax reform and defense and entitlement cuts.

Twelve members of Congress, six Democrats and six Republicans with three from each chamber, were selected by their respective leadership. That was the first mistake. Imagine the possibilities if the leadership had been required to make their selections from the opposite party.

Republican honchos would have picked the most conservative-leaning Democrats while Democratic bosses would have chosen the most moderate Republicans resulting in a group of reasonably flexible centrists who might actually reach consensus to address America's ruinous debt instead of the hard core party ideologues playing to their respective bases we ended up with.

If you still hold out hope this gang will settle on anything meaningful, consider this: four of them, two of each brand, also served on the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction commission and all voted against what were supremely reasonable recommendations.

The committee's proposals - if it actually can come up with any given its composition and the toxic political environment - are subject to a straight up or down vote, without amendments, filibusters or other delaying tactics, by Congress before December 23. If the committee, by simple majority, fails to report out an agreement or Congress votes down its package then a pre-set trigger will automatically force $1.2 trillion in cuts to defense and domestic discretionary spending.

The idea was the automatic cuts would be so odious members of the Supercommittee and Congress would suddenly become responsible adults and do the right thing. And my neighbor's Bichon Frise has assured me it will stop decorating my lawn.

Oh yeah and you should know, even if this all works out spectacularly, since any future Congress can override any actions of a previous Congress the whole exercise could end-up being pointless.

So here we have it. An economy as shaky as we've seen in 75 years. Federal deficits out of control. An emerging horde of Baby Boomers about to swamp Medicare. A rapidly evaporating manufacturing base and shrinking middleclass prosperity. Any number of blue-ribbon commissions, economists and policy wonks telling us we must raise taxes as well as cut entitlements, and we're stuck with 535 intellectual pygmies determining our fate. God bless America!