Nobody likes Monday.
This week, the “super committee” really doesn’t like Monday.
With three days left to come up with $1.2 trillion in budget cuts, the week will start with the failure to reach a deal.
Wait, that’s not quite right… The week will start with the failure to do much of anything.
A formal announcement is expected tomorrow. Barring any last-minute theatrics (though, let’s not count that out), the announcement will be that there’s no deal. A plan needed to be in place by Monday in order to make a vote on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, most of the “super committee” is likely icing their hands tonight after a full day of finger-pointing. Somehow, absolutely everyone else is to blame for the lack of movement on the budget in the last week the last month the last year recent memory including folks that aren’t even in Congress. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), while remaining hopeful, singled out Grover Norquist, the controversial head of Americans for Tax Reform for holding Congress hostage with a pledge not to raise taxes (Norquist was featured on tonight’s episode of “60 Minutes” on this very issue).
Assuming that we don’t have Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) leaping over the podium at the last minute screaming, “We have a plan!”, the end result will be a sequester, or predetermined set of cuts, evenly divided between defense and non-defense spending. It will be (insert dramatic flair here) very nearly the.end.of.the.world.
But here’s the beauty part (lowers voice to a whisper): this is a fake deadline.
Yep. Totally fake: Congress made up the deadline in the first place. If they want, they can repeal it or amend it. And there’s some talk that they may do just that. It would solve all of their problems. Assuming, of course, that Congress actually thinks that the deadline is the biggest problem they have… there’s still that little matter of the huge debt ceiling, our deficit and a projected $1.2 trillion shortfall. But they’ve got plenty of time to worry about that, right?
