It’s one week from a drop-dead moment for the supercommittee, and the powerful panel is at risk of failing, adding yet another black mark on what is already the most unpopular Congress in modern history.
There isn’t a shred of bill language circulating publicly and no scent of a bipartisan deal before a Nov. 23 deadline to show the public how a panel granted such sweeping authority is trying to solve America’s great fiscal crisis.
But, of course, those automatic cuts won’t take place if Congress overrides them, which is exactly what Congress is getting ready to do, except that not many people are saying that out loud, which would be rather embarrassing to Tea Party types, making them look like suckers, as well as to establishment Republicans, making them look liars. Congress is bumping up against the fact that the American people, while they say they want to cut spending, when push comes to shove, actually want spending to be increased. They say one thing, and mean another! Which is why Congress so often does the same thing as well! For Congress is a far more “representative” body than people like to believe.
Afterwords
In a rather tangential but entertaining riff, big government right-winger Ramesh Ponnuru earnestly defends the Bush Administration’s domestic policy from “true conservatives,” whom he obviously regards as dilettantes and poseurs, if not actual faggots.
Take the top item on the list of conservative charges against Bush, his expansion of Medicare to cover prescription drugs. That idea was overwhelmingly popular, including among self-described conservatives whom pollsters contacted. It’s hard to believe that Bush would have won Floridain 2000 without promising to match the Democrats on the issue, or that he would have won Ohio in 2004 without having made good on the promise. He won both states by small margins, and through them the Electoral College.
Is there a downside for the Democrats in all this? Well, I would love to see federal spending cut by more than the “draconian” amounts to be enforced by the automatic triggers that Congress is set to disassemble. But absent a crisis, and, shockingly, we’re not really there yet, that isn’t going to happen. For the first three years of the Obama Administration, the Republican Party brilliantly papered over a giant split in governing philosophy between the establishment and Tea Party wings. Now, at last, they’re paying the price, and it’s fun to see.
