You're gonna be doing alot of doobie rolling when you're living in a van down by the river!"

Kudos to two members of the “Super Committee” ; Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.).  It has been reported that they have been fairly quiet as of late.  Way to go boys – I respect that.

Knowing when to shut your big yapper.....

You were given a simple task of finding 1.2 trillion dollars of deficit reduction over the next ten years.

One analysis I saw claimed based on next years projected budget increase of 8% that they just had to cut the budget by 3.4% resulting in a reduced percentage increase of 5.6%.

They can’t increase spending by merely 5.6% next year?

Meanwhile other members of the Supercommitee are going around spinning their side of the story.  The blame for the deficit has been couched like this….

(R) Sen. Pat Toomey said last Tuesday: “What happened that brought about the massive budget deficits and the mounting debt that caused this committee to come into being, was, fundamentally, a spending spree. Remember, it’s been this sequence of stimulus bills, and bailouts, and government takeovers—a huge surge in discretionary spending.”

But there was a template for compromise.

Supercommittee member (D) Chris Van Hollen stated in his op-ed piece in the Washington Post last Sunday “Often in politics there is no objective measure for reasonable compromise. Fortunately, in this case the public has a measuring stick against which to judge competing claims. The recommendations made by the president’s bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (known as Simpson-Bowles, after the Republican and Democratic co-chairs) provide a model for comparing the major plans offered by both sides during the Supercommittee deliberations.”

Obama’s “grand bargain” that Speaker John Boehner wanted as well last summer that cut entitlements and raised taxes, the one that could have averted the debt crisis, couldn’t pass a Republican Congress.

Really what hope did we have for success for the Supercommittee?  Anyone who has signed the Grover Nordquist no tax pledge should have not been allowed to participate in the Supercommittee.  This intransigence is largely motivated by the shadowy influence of lobbyist Grover Norquist, the head of Americans for Tax Reform, who threatens to serve any Republican who breaks his anti-tax pledge with electoral defeat.

GOP Rep. Mike Simpson (ID) said regarding Norquist’s anti-tax pledge, “I didn’t know I was signing a marriage agreement.” Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) blasted Norquist for “paralyzing Congress.” Freshman Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI) vowed to never sign another pledge, noting the last straw came when Norquist wouldn’t let Republicans close tax loopholes that subsidize ethanol production. Former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson simply said, “If Grover Norquist is the most powerful person in America, he should run for president” rather than peddle his influence backstage.  I don’t remember voting for Gordo???

One other thing that bugs me is the post-failure blame Obama.  But Republicans need to convince us he was part of the equation. Gov. Chris Christie blamed both parties for the failure, then blamed the president for not knocking heads together the way.

I do remember as the Supercommittee convened that it was made pretty well clear that for any chance of success that Obama had to stay well clear of the deliberations —anyone care to factcheck that one?  I am pretty sure that my sister (on the right) and myself (on the left) could have sat down and got this done.

The failure of the Super Committee by making this a political issue rather than a simple bookkeeping matter should be considered a treasonous act.  They should have just put Simpson and Bowles in a room and locked it until they came up with compromise if not - they would be sent to live in a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER!