As of this morning, the Congressional Deficit Super Committee is neither super nor really a committee, since they managed to agree on exactly no things. Congress and the deficit remain real. Meanwhile, the group of six Republicans and six Democrats cannot even settle on why they failed to reach an agreement, although both sides concur in principle: it was them. “We made a reasonable offer and got nothing in return. We got naked in the room. Republicans are standing there in overcoats, hats and gloves and are toasty warm,” said one Democrat on the panel. “We showed some leg. The Democrats want us to get completely naked,” explained a Republican aide. As usual when two parties can’t bring themselves to take their clothes off at the same time, somebody else is going to get fucked.
That’s us. Now that this miniature version of Congress has failed to address the same problem in exactly the same way big Congress did, a series of automatic spending cuts will be triggered for the Pentagon, Social Security and other federal programs. Of course, Congress could aways vote to suspend its own rule and push the problem of reducing the deficit to another time, as they did with this committee. Fun coincidence: one of the sticking points in super committee negotiations has been Republicans’ refusal to repeal the Bush tax cuts, which themselves overcame the objections of deficit hawks only because they were supposed to be temporary.
It’s almost as if our congressional representatives consistently excused themselves from fiscal responsibility by saying that their indulgences are just for now. It’s almost as if, in an America that destroyed its own economy by loaning itself money it couldn’t pay back for houses it couldn’t afford, this were sort of a problem behavior. I would describe the news that the super committee failed to reach a deficit-reduction agreement as grimly unsurprising. Is it bad news? Yes, almost certainly. Did everyone see it coming from the moment John Kerry and John Kyl strode boldly into a conference room together? Yeah, pretty much.
Congress agrees that the federal deficit is an enormous problem. It has also demonstrated, in broad strokes last summer and now in microcosm, that it cannot do anything about it. I repeat: the current Congress is not capable of controlling federal revenue or expenditures. What are we, the American people, supposed to make of that? Is it the congresspeople we have now? Because we voted for them pretty recently, and deficits were a big deal then, too. Is it the institution of Congress itself? Because I personally grew up putting a lot of stock in the instruments of representative government, and I’m not really sure what I might like otherwise.
If democracy is not the problem and the people we elect through it are interchangeably inept, we are forced to consider a third culprit: the electorate. Maybe the people on the deficit reduction super committee think that not reducing the deficit is an okay thing to do because of what they think of us. Maybe they looked at a debt-ridden electorate literally and figuratively mortgaging its future and thought, the odds that these people will care about this and remember to punish us for it are a fraction of a fraction.
I hope they are not right. I hope that the members of the deficit reduction super committee are voted out of office with extreme prejudice, and that today marks the end of the careers of Kerry and Kyl and all the other so-called statesmen whose decades in office cannot impel them to take any action whatsoever to benefit the United States of America. While we’re at it, I hope the federal budget gets balanced. The problem with both of these ideas is that I can’t get anyone to do them for me.
However, you will be mercilessly mocked for having hope before an elected official tells you to officially lower your standards.
Spoiler alert: lower standards will be similarly ignored.
“I would describe the news that the super committee failed to reach a deficit-reduction agreement as grimly unsurprising. Is it bad news? Yes, almost certainly. Did everyone see it coming from the moment John Kerry and John Kyl strode boldly into a conference room together? Yeah, pretty much.”
From the day the super committee was announced, the only uncertainty was how much of the automatic cuts Congress would override after the committee failed.
“If democracy is not the problem and the people we elect through it are interchangeably inept, we are forced to consider a third culprit: the electorate.”
Totally with you bro. Finally, someone gets that politicians don’t exist in a vacuum.
“Maybe the people on the deficit reduction super committee think that not reducing the deficit is an okay thing to do because of what they think of us.”
What?! How are you still making this the fault of the politicians? You seem to suggest that the committee members are sitting there smoking cigars and talking about how dumb the electorate is.
It’s a popular narrative amongst the hoi polloi, but I see no evidence to suggest politicians come from an alien dimension of pure pain and are here to transform Earth into a smoldering spa of sulfur and hellfire. There is evidence that they’re usually hardworking people with lots of drive and a commitment to making change in the world, but I don’t like to dwell on that stuff since it makes me look retarded.
What probably happened in the committee? Subject to the whims of their constituents, each member brings a bunch of baggage to the negotiation which he or she can’t rid himself of. So when one set of representatives suggest a cut, he and his party can’t accept it because the constituents wouldn’t like it. The democrats wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they let social spending suffer. They return an offer to cut the military, which the republicans can’t accept because they wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they allowed it. Deadlock.
If there is any acceptable middle ground for cuts, why would they reach an agreement? Doing otherwise is politically untenable. I would love it if the committee was a political death cult who would do what they knew was best for the country even though it meant their own careers would end, but that’s the stuff movies are made out of. American politicians pander and play the game; those who don’t get elected (see: Ron Paul). And, as an institution, we should be thankful our politicians respond to voter whims, since that’s more robust than them formulating “what’s best for the country” just on their own.
It’s because they’re representing the electorate’s conflicting interests that they don’t reach agreement; not because they’re punking us. I wish they would make backroom deals and bargains in order to facilitate an agreement, but that idea, of course, is anathema to the hoi polloi who think deals = equal corruption. I’m sure government would work perfectly if the angriest of the electorate were in power. They’d just…put their foots down and the other team would somehow choose not to do the same thing? Oh hi deadlock.
Specifically, in this case, it’s reasonable to load up and take aim at the individual members of the super committee. But insofar as your analysis applies to our political institutions wholly, I disagree the burden of blame lands solely on politicians. The electorate is the source of all the rules that govern the games they play, and I think are partly to blame for governance outcomes.
Be sure to elect the candidate who promises to “acquiesce when everyone else is too stubborn to” in your next election.
“If there is any acceptable middle ground for cuts, why would they reach an agreement?”
If there is _not_ any