Room 714, I'll Be Waiting

Here are a few of my thoughts on this Super Committee ...

I could care less who is appointed by each "side". It's their prerogative to select their own members. I wish the two parties would quit whining about who the other "side" picked. They have a job to do, either they will do it or they won't.

Just by looking at the photo and not knowing anything about any of the members, I think it's funny the GOP picked all white guys. Again, they can choose any member they want and I'm not going to complain about it. However, simply from a public relations standpoint I think it's telling about the "big tent" of the Republican Party. I know it gets the ire of the conservative base when it is implied they are "racist", yet they continue to do nothing to change that image.

The question of the constitutionality of this "super committee" has been raised. From everything I've read and discussed with people whose political knowledge I trust, I don't think it's a violation of our Constitution. However, I'll stick to my original claim that our Founding Fathers would roll over in their graves if they learned this is how our branches of government evolved. Combining the two branches of the Senate and the House and limiting it to a select few and then making a recommendation that can't be amended by the other members seems hardly the original plan laid forth by the original designers. Ultimately the representatives will have their voice heard by a vote of acceptance or rejection but the political pressure will probably be too much and most members will feel the heat to jump on board. Maybe not though.

What I find comical is this "super committee" is tasked with finding a way to save, either by cutting spending or taxing or both, $1.5 trillion. If, and I stress the if, they are successful we will have accomplished lowering the total amount of our debt to roughly $10 trillion. Super.

I'm not suggesting we don't need to do something. However, I'm a big proponent of trying to identify and rectify the cause before treating the symptoms. It seems we make this mistake all too often in our political arena. We go to wars to wipe out the symptom and we don't deal with the original cause. We talk of building giant walls and rounding up and shipping out all of the illegal aliens and we ignore the cause. We fight a war on drugs and incarcerate millions of our citizens and don't address the cause and we simply ignore the basic principle of supply and demand. The education level of our students is on the decline and we talk of firing teachers and lengthening the school day, hardly the reason why we find ourselves in this situation. The cause for the post office losing money has been foreseeable for years but it isn't until they literally go broke that we begin to treat the symptom.  Our politicians are no longer working for us, instead they cater and pander to lobbyists, yet we run nothing but negative campaign ads and encourage an ignorant faction of our population to turn out to the polls in droves to ensure we stay on the same course. Super.

All six Republican members of the "super committee" have signed Grover Norquist's pledge to not raise taxes under any circumstance. That's a great way to begin negotiations. In fact, it's super.

If the resolution passed by the "super committee" is rejected then Medicare and funding of our national security will automatically be cut by $1.2 trillion. Super.