Okay -- fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
I am pissed!
In a chilling HuffPo article, the appropriately named columnist, Ryan Grim, reports Senators Reid and McConnell have come up with a plan to solve the debt crisis with a diabolical solution -- a super committee composed of 12 members, 6 from each branch of the Legislature, split 50-50 between the two parties.
This so-called and probably unconstitutional Super Congress will be granted extraordinary "super" powers and charged with hammering out a deal that would be fast-tracked through House and Senate with none of the regular membership being allowed to amend, debate, or otherwise have input on the Gang of 12 legislation, but only vote yea or nay.
No two-thirds majority required to pass the Gang of 12's legislation, only a simple majority.
Let the ranting begin. . .
This is outrageous! This is frightening! This is the formation of a tyrannical class of rulers! This is a revolution from the inside of government to change government into an oligarchy.
It is the dream-child of the Great Orange Satan, Rep. Boehner, who ". . .made a Super Congress a central part of his last-minute proposal. . ."
Here's the plan:
The debt ceiling would be raised for a short-term period and coupled with an equal dollar figure of cuts, somewhere in the vicinity of a trillion dollars over ten years. A second increase in the debt ceiling would be tied to the creation of a Super Congress that would be required to find a minimum amount of spending cuts. Because the elevated panel would need at least one Democratic vote, its plan would presumably include at least some revenue. . .it would likely be heavily slanted toward spending cuts.
Republicans are depending on the good Democrats' right sense of responsibility that the government not default to carry out this coup. And it looks like they placed their money to cover more than one bet. They're also betting on the venal Democrats' overweening desire to be re-elected, especially in purple districts and states. "Democrats are open to a series of cuts as well as a Super Congress, but only if the debt ceiling is raised sufficiently so that it pushes past the election."
President Obama, who has proven himself to be enamored of cutting social programs and entitlements has no reason to raise his eyebrows at what the Boehner-McConnell-Reid cabal are considering doing -- it can only make his job easier It's also a new government most likely to give him what he wants, in essence, a Simpson-Bowles solution to the crisis that is not a crisis.