The not so super Committee

We are at the deadline for the Congressional Super Committee to come forward with a plan to cut the deficit by 1.2 trillion dollars over the next decade. As of now, it looks like there will be no agreement. Indeed, there will not even be any partial agreement. In many ways, this is a testament to the triumph among Democrats of politics over what is good for the country. Let me explain: The Democrats have grabbed hold of an issue that they believe will enable them to come back from their 2010 defeat, namely raising taxes on the wealthy. Polling has shown that voters favor higher taxes for the wealthy. Of course, voters also overwhelmingly say no when the question asked is "should the government raise taxes during bad economic times". Nevertheless, the Democrats are now insisting on making this a big issue as the country moves towards the 2012 election. To that end, we have seen endless stories announcing that the Republicans will not agree to raising taxes on the rich.

The problem, however, is that the Super Committee was supposed to come up with ways to cut the deficit. If no agreement is reached, then automatic spending cuts are supposed to go into effect, particularly hitting defense the hardest. The Republicans have come up with a few different proposals to do this. The latest involved about $300 billion in additional revenue by revamping the tax code to cut deductions and lower rates. In that way, not only will the deficit be cut, but economic growth will be promoted. There were also $900 billion in cuts in that proposal. Democrats have rejected that proposal. Despite a lot of searching, I have not been able to find what the Democrats propose, if anything. Since we are at the deadline, it looks like the Democrats' desire not to give up the tax the rich issue will prevent there from being any agreement coming from the Committee.

In the last month, we have watched president Obama make a series of decisions that will hurt the economy in order to help his election campaign. The Keystone XL pipeline and the Ohio gas drilling lease sale would have meant something in the area of 300,000 new jobs, but Obama put them on hold since they might upset the environmentalist in his base. Now, however, the congressional Democrats have gone Obama one step better. They are not just putting economic growth at a lower priority than their elections, they are putting the defense of the country as less important than their election strategies. Obama's Secretary of Defense has said that the automatic cuts to defense will do severe damage to the military. The Democrats, however, do not care. They want their issue for the next election and the country can be damned.

Earlier this year, we had Democrat after Democrat call the Tea Party "terrorists" because they demanded that the deficit be cut. Of course, the Democrats ultimately agreed that this was the proper course for the country. Now, however, we are not dealing with political hyperbole. the Democrats, by their actions, are actually siding with the real terrorists. They want make extreme cuts to the defense budget rather than give up an issue for the election. They deserve to be condemn for this.