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Monday, 21 November 2011 16:51

Written by Reg Henry

Announcer: "The Adventures of Supercommittee."

"Slower than a speeding tortoise! ... Less powerful than a locomotive! ... Unable to leap tall federal buildings at a single bound!"

Voices: "Look up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Supercommittee."

Announcer: "Yes, it's Supercommittee, strange visitors from another political planet who came to Washington with powers and abilities far below those of mortal men.

"Supercommittee, who can't change the course of mighty rivers, can't bend steel in their bare hands; and who, disguised as so many Clark Bents, sour-mannered ideologues for once great metropolitan constituencies, fight a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way, according to them.

"And now, another episode in the exciting Adventures of Supercommittee."

Unfortunately, these adventures are more predictable than exciting. The Supercommittee — the congressional panel charged with coming up with $1.2 trillion in cuts in the interest of trimming the deficit — is headed for failure. Unless divine intervention occurs between now and Thanksgiving, the complete dysfunction of the American political system will be official.

My question today: Who is to blame? Yes, it's time to play the blame game — and you will be shocked (shocked!) to see whom I blame.

In asking this question, I understand that the conventional view is that we should blame all the parties equally. Down with every member of Congress! Out with all the rascals!

But while no-one is completely blameless, I don't think that the blame falls equally on the two major parties.

In order to cut the deficit, expenditures must be cut and revenue must be raised. All sensible onlookers at least agree on that. In fact, it was an assumption going into the Supercommittee talks that both Democrats and Republicans would have to compromise.

In my view, the Republicans bear the greater part of the blame because their ideological commitment to not raising taxes — ever — made such a compromise impossible. The truth is that they are all promised to Grover Norquist. Literally, the Republicans have sworn not to raise taxes. Taxes are kryptonite to them.

By contrast, the Democrats, no exemplars of reason and virtue, have at least not sworn to never cutting expenditures, even if they give the impression sometimes of having done that. Were the Democrats reasonable? Probably not, but a little movement on taxes might have changed everything.

I understand that the Republicans, under the Toomey plan, went so far as to propose cutting tax breaks. Very daring of them too, but they coupled this with proposing that the Bush taxes cuts be extended. Hey, someone change the record, it's skipping on the same old song.

The Republican unwillingness to concede but an inch on taxes was a certain recipe for failure and now we will have it. And perhaps their supporters will be happy, because Republicans, more than Democrats, have been shown in polls to be far less tolerant of their representatives compromising on anything.

Might as well look up in the sky, nothing sensible is happening down here.

(Image from "Man, Are We Screwed.")