WaPo: On supercommittee, growing doubts about reaching a debt deal

[spanone]

With just 10 days left before a Thanksgiving deadline, members of a congressional supercommittee appear increasingly pessimistic about the odds of forging a debt-reduction deal, despite an unprecedented offer by Republicans to raise taxes.

The public debate has grown more divisive since both sides laid out new offers last week. Negotiators, already under attack from the left, are facing fresh pressure from the anti-tax right. And charges of betrayal are expected to intensify Monday when the House returns from a weeklong break, fueling concerns that a deal could emerge from the supercommittee only to die in the House or the Senate.


On Sunday, Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, the supercommittee’s GOP co-chairman, said he hasn’t “given up hope” that the panel can reach an agreement to reduce borrowing by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade. But Hensarling also embraced the prospect of failure.

“Listen, it’s been a roller coaster ride,” he said on CNN. “We haven’t given up hope. But if this was easy, the president of the United States and the speaker of the House would have gotten it done themselves” in talks during this summer’s debt-limit showdown.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/on-supercommittee-growing-doubts-about-reaching-a-debt-deal/2011/11/13/gIQABgG9IN_story.html?hpid=z1

[Autumn]

1. I love this part

"embraced the prospect of failure." That just describes Congress perfectly. Embraced :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[gateley]

2. Bwah! nt

[saras]

5. "embraced the prospect of failure." well, no, they didn't EMBRACE it, they humped it like a dog

[bluestateguy]

3. Oh no, not that.

My knickers are in a wad now! The Supercommittee is going to FAIL! What will I do?

[chollybocker]

4. The Great Circle Jerk of 2011.

All at taxpayers expense. Zilch. Zero. Nada. Every single invoice from this super-duper public service committee should be made available to...the public. Or maybe they finally realized that this whole exercise was unconstitutional to begin with. Anyways. Oops! Whatever!

Stupid Fuckwads.

[roguevalley]

6. they're trying to break their rating record. 9% approvals is too high.

[chollybocker]

7. They could have 99% approval ratings, with a simple stroke of the pen...

...but all that sweet, sweet PAC-ola keeps shackling their wrists.

[Prophet 451]

8. Well, that was predictable

The Repubs never had any intention of consenting to anything remotely sane. The only worry was whether the Dems would follow them in proposing the insane.