The Joint Select Committee on Debt Reduction, aka the super committee, apparently has failed to reach an agreement on how to reduce the nation’s debt. No surprise, really. Did anyone seriously think a mini-Congress would do any better than the entire Congress?
I’m bouncing-off-the-walls furious. I’m disgusted and fed up. I’d vote them all out of office if I could. These people were elected to do a job. They didn’t do it. In my book, that’s a firing offense. As for the looming automatic cuts that were supposed to pressure the committee into reaching an agreement — they don’t go into effect until 2013. That’s not pressure. Pressure would have been, say, the end of this year. 2013, you may have noticed, is after the next election. And that’s all these clowns care about — the next election.
Of course, the super committee was a ploy by the entire Congress to get the onus off their backs, to wash their hands of the problem, to absolve themselves of responsibility, to focus the blame on the 12 instead of the entire body. Well, it didn’t work. I blame them all — the super committee and everyone else in Congress. Fixing America’s debt mess, or at least taking some decisive action, was their responsibility and they have failed.
For your future reference, the members of the super committee are:
Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas (Republican and committee co-chair)
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington (Democrat and committee co-chair)
Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland (Democrat)
Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona (Republican)
Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts (Democrat)
Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania (Republican)
Sen. Max Baucus of Montana (Democrat)
Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio (Republican)
Rep. Xavier Becerra of California (Democrat)
Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan (Republican)
Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina (Democrat)
Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan (Republican)
I’ll bet any 535 citizens off the street could do as well as Congress has been doing with the debt problem. Maybe better. Every day in this country we put groups of 12 randomly selected individuals in rooms together and charge them with making decisions. And they do. Because they have to. Because they don’t get to go home until the job is done.
I say again as I have before: Lock those politicians in a room and tell them they can’t come out till they reach a decision. That, or resign and let the voters send in replacements.
Mark your calendars. Election Day is November 6, 2012.
I could not agree with you more here Pied. I think they should be sequestered, and forced to give up some of the “comforts of office” while they’re locked in there too. You know, the jury thing reminds me of those who thought these “elected” positions should be filled by draft lottery instead. Could a true “citizen congress” selected at random be much worse than the ones who got there through this terribly broken system we’re using now?
Originally they were supposed to be a citizen congress, serving briefly before returning to their communities, weren’t they? The founders never imagined lifetime professional politicians. And certainly not politicians more beholden to lobbyists and corporations than to their constituents. I’ve thought for a very long time that we need term limits on these bozos.
Strange how they impose term limits on the president, who apparently has no real power at all, but not on themselves, the ones who keep screwing things up year after year after year…
It always comes down to that, doesn’t it? We need to change the laws to fix Congress, but Congress makes the laws.
It was of course doomed from the beginning. I can’t resist saying, immodestly, that I firmly predicted the failure. What kind of a solution was it – pick 6 of the more extreme ideologues from each party, including 6 Republicans who are publicly proud of signing the Norquist pledge, and expect them to compromise? What a joke! And the 6 Democrats were just as firm never to reduce entitlements. Even video games aren’t that silly.
But I thought “Role Playing Game” was the very definition of politics! 🙄
Definitely a joke. They should have been in clown costumes to begin with. Heck, issue clown suits to everyone in Congress. That way they’ll be properly dressed for Mak’s role playing games.