Supercommittee fails to cut deficit
Bipartisan deal not possible, chairmen say
A Congressional supercommittee responsible for reaching a possible deficit reduction agreement announced Monday that it has failed to cut the federal deficit by $1.2 trillion.
“After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline,” according to a joint statement by the co-chairmen of the committee, as reported by the Washington Post.
The co-chairmen are Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.).
“Despite our inability to bridge the committee’s significant differences, we end this process united in our belief that the nation’s fiscal crisis must be addressed and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve,” the statement said. “We remain hopeful that Congress can build on this committee’s work and can find a way to tackle this issue in a way that works for the American people and our economy.”
The special debt-reduction supercommittee had been tasked with coming up with $1.2 trillion in spending cuts.
Given that a deal was not reached, there will not be an automatic spending cuts of that amount beginning in 2013. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that domestic programs would be cut by 7.8 percent, Medicare spending would be cut by 2 percent and defense programs would be cut by 10 percent.
In addition to not reaching a deal on cuts, the supercommittee failed to agree on who was at fault. Both the Democrats and the Republicans blamed each other.
The news of the failure had been expected, and markets Monday dropped, CNN reported.
"The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 248 points Monday, with a minor recovery after bei
This article originally appeared on GlobalPost.
Gingrich: Failure 'good for America'
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich told an audience at Rivier College on Monday that if the congressional debt-reduction supercommittee failed to find a way to cut 1.2 trillion from the federal budget, it would be “good for America.”
Gingrich explained he believed the supercommittee idea was wrong from the start, MSNBC reported.
"They were trying to break out of the mess by being, in my judgment, even dumber — that is, creating a committee of 12 picked by the political leadership to magically get in a room to come up something that 535 couldn't solve,” he said, according to MSNBC. “It's a major reason I am running for president.”
Gingrich suggested that both parties should “hold a press conference this week and say, 'We're going to ask through regular order every subcommittee to find savings. We're going to do it out in the open. We're going to it with expert testimony,’” according to CBS News.
Gingrich seemed geeked that a new USA Today/Gallup poll showed that he was the top Republican candidate among registered Republicans, CBS News reported.
"I think, first, is the scale of the solutions that I propose, which are much bigger and much more comprehensive than any other person running for office," Gingrich said, according to CBS News.
Gingrich has certainly been offering a selection of unique solutions in his recent campaign speeches, the Atlantic noted. At Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on Friday, he argued that child labor laws should be abolished so poor children could start working earlier.
"I tried for years to have a very simple model,” Gingrich said, according to CNN. “These schools should get rid of unionized janitors, have one master janitor, pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work; they'd have cash; they'd have pride in the schools. They'd begin the process of rising." He added, "Go out and talk to people who are really successful in one generation. They all started their first job at 9 to 14 years of age.”
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