Things You May Not Know About The Failed Super Committee

The announcement came Monday after the markets closed, just as expected the “Super Committee” whose job was to cut $1.2 trillion out of the budget failed.

"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," Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, co-chairs of the super committee, said in a written statement.

The truth is the committee was doomed from the start, if a divided Congress couldn’t come up with the cuts why would anyone believe that a mini-version of a divided congress would succeed?

Also expected was it took about two minutes for President to make divisive comments about the committee’s failure. At a press conference he said that Republicans would not budge in their defense of the tax cuts for wealthy Americans. He said Republicans are main stumbling block to reaching agreement on deficit.

"There are still too many Republicans in Congress who have refused to listen to the voices of reason and compromise that are coming from outside of Washington," Obama said.

The truth is that the Republican House Leadership offered as much as $640B in tax hikes in the negotiations (in the form of closing loopholes) the President’s comments were the continuance of his reelection strategy, carpet bomb the GOP rather than run on his record (who can really blame him). But the President is conveniently ignoring the fact that even the two most conservative members of the panel Senator Pat Toomey and Representative Jeb Hensarling offered $300 billion in net tax hikes. All of these compromises were being offered despite the fact that tax hikes always slow down the economy. And this economy cannot absorb any more slowdowns.

Why were these compromises rejected? Because the Democrats changed the rules, they insisted that the GOP come up with $1.2 trillion in increased taxes and combine it with $500 billion in cuts. You see the Democrats insisted that the Super Committee not only come up with the required funds, but enough extra cash to pay for the President’s most recent stimulus plan which was already rejected by both houses of congress. In other word’s the GOP was “punked” and the President was less than truthful.

But in the end that was the plan. The Democrats inside and outside the super committee have joined with the President’s demonize-the-GOP and the productive-class 2012 campaign strategy. They moved the committee’s goal posts in an attempt to divert public attention away from the bloated federal government threatening our freedoms, a confusing and unfair tax code, and entitlement spending that is dragging down the economy. Instead of solutions they offer this a phony populism making the people who create jobs, the enemy of America. Seemingly they don’t care if Moody’s downgrades the US credit rating again just as long as the president gets re-elected.

As for those mandatory cuts to entitlements and defense that kick in now that the Super Committee failed, it’s not as bad as threatened. In fact they aren’t cuts at all.A little over $200 billion of the automatic cuts are to be taken out of interest expense leaving $984 billion in automatic spending cuts over 10 years, which comes to about $55 billion annually each from defense and domestic programs. Now here’s the little secret no one is sharing all that money is being taken from future year’s budgets that have increases already figured into them. You see, they aren’t really cuts; they are a slowdown in the budget increases.

Both parties use this system to fool the public, rather than looking for cuts at present spending levels they work off a “baseline,” fake future budgets created by the CBO. These budgets assume built-in increases, but are neither presented by the President nor voted on by Congress. This is true of most “budget cuts” coming out of congress. Rather than calling them cuts a more accurate term would be fraud.

You see there is very little honesty in this Super Committee. Two parties working very hard to fool the public by slowing down spending increases instead of cutting the budget as promised. One party has worked hard to make the committee fail by moving the goalposts, all in an attempt to re-elect a President who by the end of his first term will have increased the federal deficit by more than the first 42 president’s combined, and even more than the previous president did in eight years.

While both parties play their political games, the federal deficit broke through the $15 trillion level. That is no game; it is a disgraceful burden to place on our children and grandchildren.