According to First Read, Patty Murray and her Republican counterpart have issued a statement announcing that the Super Committee has failed to reach an agreement:

After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline.

Despite our inability to bridge the committee’s significant differences, we end this process united in our belief that the nation’s fiscal crisis must be addressed and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve. We remain hopeful that Congress can build on this committee’s work and can find a way to tackle this issue in a way that works for the American people and our economy.

We are deeply disappointed that we have been unable to come to a bipartisan deficit reduction agreement, but as we approach the uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving, we want to express our appreciation to every member of this committee, each of whom came into the process committed to achieving a solution that has eluded many groups before us. Most importantly, we want to thank the American people for sharing thoughts and ideas and for providing support and good will as we worked to accomplish this difficult task.

The list of thanks continues after the jump. I shudder to think how long the list would have been had they succeeded. The President will be issuing a statement at 5:45 ET.

We would also like to thank our committee staff, in particular Staff Director Mark Prater and Deputy Staff Director Sarah Kuehl, as well as each committee member’s staff for the tremendous work they contributed to this effort. We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to Dr. Douglas Elmendorf and Mr. Thomas Barthold and their teams at the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation, respectively, for the technical support they provided to the committee and its members.

26 replies on “The Super Committee Has Officially Failed”

  2. I kinda see this as a win. The Republicans wouldnt have accepted nothing but more cuts in services, and recently the Democrats have caved in when it came to those negotiations.

    With this method, both sides lose. Which is better than one side losing and the other going “I got what I wanted”.

  3. Everyone knew this was nothing but bad theater from the start. They were NEVER going to come up with a solution for anything.

  4. Wow, who would have thought tax cuts and mindless expansion of entitlements would have led us no where?

    Time to end Bush era tax cuts, including those on middle and lowers classes, slash entitlements, raise social security retirement age and medicare eligibility.

  5. It’s too soon to call it a win, particularly when I’ve read that the Dems started negotiating from the right-of-center position as usual. But at least they held their ground.

  9. I loved Krugman’s take on this last week:

    Barring an evil miracle — I’ll explain the evil part later — the committee will fail to meet that deadline.
    If this news surprises you, you haven’t been paying attention. If it depresses you, cheer up: In this case, failure is good.
    [..]
    For one thing, history tells us that the Republican Party would renege on its side of any deal as soon as it got the chance. Remember, the U.S. fiscal outlook was pretty good in 2000, but, as soon as Republicans gained control of the White House, they squandered the surplus on tax cuts and unfunded wars. So any deal reached now would, in practice, be nothing more than a deal to slash Social Security and Medicare, with no lasting improvement in the deficit.
    Also, any deal reached now would almost surely end up worsening the economic slump. Slashing spending while the economy is depressed destroys jobs, and it’s probably even counterproductive in terms of deficit reduction, since it leads to lower revenue both now and in the future. And current projections, like those of the Federal Reserve, suggest that the economy will remain depressed at least through 2014. Better to have no deal than a deal that imposes spending cuts in the next few years.
    But don’t we eventually have to match spending and revenue? Yes, we do. But the decision about how to do that isn’t about accounting. It’s about fundamental values — and it’s a decision that should be made by voters, not by some committee that allegedly transcends the partisan divide.
    Eventually, one side or the other of that divide will get the kind of popular mandate it needs to resolve our long-run budget issues. Until then, attempts to strike a Grand Bargain are fundamentally destructive. If the supercommittee fails, as expected, it will be time to celebrate.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/opinio…

  10. So the Pentagon gets cut 50%, thank goodness. And in 2013 the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule. At least that’s the good kind of austerity.

  12. Time to end Bush era tax cuts, including those on middle and lowers classes, slash entitlements

    Right but wasn’t this the plan of the greedy Royalists all along?

    Under the guise of “saving” things, they actually impose taxes on the middle classes, allowing them to continue printing money to keep the Aristocrazy afloat.

    The last thing the powers that be can stand is for the supply of real dollars to dry up…then the party stops.

  13. Time to return to the tax rates that Reagan had for downturn times – 90% income tax rate for Millionaires, 50% corporate tax rate and 50% capital gains tax rate.

    If it was good enough for Reagan in a fiscal downturn, and good enough for Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to get rich then, it’s good enough for America NOW!

  14. @11: i think its 50% of the automatic cuts come from the DoD, not that their ridiculous budget gets cut by 50%. probably more like 5%.

  17. #14,15,16

    And yet all of you are too timid to address the real issue…implementing an Asset Tax.

    Thus, I expose you for the tools that you really are!

  18. @17, DoD’s not getting cut at all. They’re going to end-run around the triggers like the dishonest and incompetent pieces of shit they are.

  21. @18 lol, the only good asset tax is the one proposed for the EU, based on French economic theory.

    Most US proposals won’t work, because they have loopholes you can drive a Sovereign Wealth Fund through.

    Nice try though – how about we put all corporate and individual tax exemptions up for a 2/3 vote of the Citizens instead?

  22. @20, on second glance my @21 could be contrued as a slam at you, not at Bailo @18. I didn’t mean you must have an IQ over 60 to understand his posts; I meant the opposite, that people with IQs over 60 CAN’T understand his posts, because they (the people, not the posts) aren’t stupid enough. Stupid people find everything Bailo says reasonable and wise.

Comments are closed.