Super Congress: Reps. Upton, Bacerra, Hensarling and Sens. Murray, Kyl, Baucus, Portman and Kerry
(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
No one could have
predicted this as a Super Congress "escape hatch."
WASHINGTON — With a little over a week left to reach a deal, members of the Congressional deficit reduction panel are looking for an escape hatch that would let them strike an accord on revenue levels but delay until next year tough decisions about exactly how to raise taxes.
Under this approach, the panel would decide on the amount of new revenue to be raised but would leave it to the tax-writing committees of Congress to fill in details next year, well beyond the Nov. 23 deadline for the panel itself to reach an agreement. That would put off painful political decisions but ensure that the debate over deficit reduction stretched into the election year.
Brilliant plan! Could Democrats on the committee seriously still be this stupid? Do they not see the big neon arrows pointing to this idea screaming "It's a trap!" Maybe. None of them are quoted directly in this story, so it could be one being shopped around by Republicans on the committee just to show that this time they're really serious about maybe someday talking about raising taxes.
The problem with that theory is that it just sounds so familiar, exactly where Democrats have gone before. Republicans promise they'll talk about eliminating the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy in the next round, and Democrats are so grateful they give them a huge concession (Social Security this round?) to show they're still negotiating in good faith.
What Krugman says:
If you think that promise has any credibility whatsoever—if you have any doubts that the end result would be to gut Social Security and actually cut taxes for the wealthy—I have this Nigerian bank account that can be yours if you send me $100,000 in expenses.
Apparently President Obama and congressional leadership are pushing for the committee to actually meet its Nov. 23 deadline with a plan. But a plan that locks in massive domestic spending cuts for the promise of talking about increasing taxes in the middle of an election year isn't a plan. It's a cave-in.