Deficit-Cuting 'Supercommittee' Struggling as Deadline Approaches

By Jon E. Dougherty at 10 Oct 2011

(Newsroom America) -- The congressional deficit-cutting "supercommittee" is struggling to come up with its own plan ahead of an approaching deadline that will trigger hundreds of billions in automatic budget cuts many on both sides of the political aisle don't want.

After weeks of secret meetings, the 12-member panel does not appear any closer to an agreement than when it began meeting for talks last month, ABC News reported.

The committee was created out of last summer's budget legislation and was charged with finding $1.2 trillion in budget cuts over the next 10 years. But as time wears on, lawmakers policy wonks tracking the committee's progress are becoming less optimistic it will fulfill its mission.

The reasons for a lack of agreement are familiar; one side doesn't want tax increases, and the other doesn't want cuts to favored programs like Medicare and Social Security, though many economists believe a combination of both is needed to repair the federal government's spiraling debt crisis.

"Fairness has to be a prerequisite for it," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, according to ABC News.

"We have just come through passing a bill that was (all spending) cuts, no revenue," she said, referencing the August legislation which raised the federal government's debt limit while setting "caps" on several agency budgets.

Earlier talks among lawmakers, led by Vice President Joe Biden, included measures aimed at cutting farm subsidies, requiring federal employees to contribute more to their retirement, auctioning broadcast spectrum and curbing payments to some Medicare providers.

And while those measures seemed rather easy to adopt, combined they would still fall short of the required $1.2 trillion in savings, said ABC.

For his part, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he expects results from the committee's GOP members.

"I made it clear to the Republican members of the supercommittee that I expect there will be an outcome, that there has to be an outcome," he told a forum in Washington last week.

No agreement will trigger painful across-the-board cuts to agencies, including the Pentagon, which most conservatives say would be difficult to swallow, given the United States' ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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