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Jewish World Review
Oct 27, 2011
29 Tishrei, 5772
Stuntmen of the supercommittee
By
Dana Milbank
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
As members of the budget “supercommittee” arrived in a congressional hearing room for another public hearing this week, a more compelling performance of political theater was debuting nearby on the east lawn of the Capitol.
A dozen demonstrators, wearing blue and red “supercommittee” capes and masks showing larger-than-life faces of the committee members, posed for the cameras. Next to them, a grim reaper, carrying cleavers labeled “budget cuts,” menaced a group of bound hostages wearing labels such as “USAID” and “Global Health Initiative.” As the reaper raised his knives over the hostages, the committee members only shrugged. “Are those bobbleheads?” a nearby Capitol police officer asked a reporter. Not exactly. The performance was officially dubbed a “photo stunt” by its organizer, Oxfam America. There was something refreshing about Oxfam’s honesty in labeling its activity a stunt. It might be a useful model for the supercommittee. The lawmakers’ responsibility is gravely serious, but their public deliberations are about as useful as those of the actors on the east lawn. Reasonable people on all sides know that tackling the nation’s long-term debt problems will require both an increase in taxes and cuts to entitlement programs. But just weeks from the committee’s deadline, Republicans continue to resist new tax revenues, and Democrats dance around the need for entitlement cuts. And so, as the 12 stuntmen on the committee assembled for their hearing this week, it was to discuss something different: the relatively small slice of the budget known as “discretionary spending.” Even at this late stage, their comments -- in public, at least -- suggest they are less interested in agreeing than in making points. “There has to be balance,” said Democrat co-chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “Our entitlement spending is roughly 60 percent of the budget and growing,” countered Republican co-chair Jeb Hensarling (Texas). “One of our major problems is the drop in revenues,” asserted Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.). “The need to rein in mandatory spending is obviously one of the priorities that we need to address,” countered Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.). “We need to do it, I believe, in a balanced way,” posited Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). The only thing they seemed to agree on was that they weren’t focusing on the main issues. “Non-defense discretionary spending represents less than one-fifth of total federal spending,” Murray pointed out. “Listening to the debates here in D.C. over the last few months, you would think this small piece of pie was a whole lot bigger.” “In many respects today,” Hensarling concurred, “we may be debating the pennies, nickels and dimes in a debt crisis that is demanding half dollars and dollar bills.” Compared to these posturing games, genuine stunts were more compelling – such as the demonstrator who disrupted the proceedings by shouting out a different solution: “End the wars! That’s how we fix the deficit. And all this obfuscation with percentages of GDP, this is just trying to confuse the issue.” While the lawmakers talked past each other, the advocacy group Strengthen Social Security performed its own stunt, by conference call. The group invited an actual Social Security recipient from Massachusetts to plead with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a supercommittee member, to resist all cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. “We depend on these things,” pleaded the elderly woman, who retired in 1987. “We worry about them each and every day.” Of course, the Social Security and Medicare benefits for a woman of her age aren’t in jeopardy, regardless of what the supercommittee does. But this was theater. I asked the man leading the call, Syracuse University’s Eric Kingson, how the debt problem could be solved without any cuts to entitlements. He said we should end the “tax holiday for the very well off.” By all means. But let’s not pretend that alone will fix the problem: The only way out, ultimately, is to raise taxes AND cut entitlements. If the dozen stuntmen on the supercommittee don’t adopt that thinking in the coming weeks, they might as well be wearing capes and bobbleheads.
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Previously:
• 10/26/11 Democrats on the sidelines
• 10/24/11 Rick Perry's birther Parade
• 10/24/11 The birthers eat their own
• 10/19/11 The GOP's middle man
• 10/17/11 The waiting for nothing Congress
• 10/12/11 Sparsely occupied D.C.: Why the movement hasn't caught on
• 10/10/11 Can Obama strike an alliance with Occupy Wall Street?
• 10/06/11 Chris Christie, such a presidential tease
• 10/05/11 Obama and his foot soldiers go toe to toe
• 09/28/11 Cain could deliver
• 09/26/11 Republicans? Mr. Nice Guys?
• 09/22/11 Why Ron Paul is winning the GOP primary
• 09/21/11 I am a job creator who creates no jobs
• 09/20/11 Obama launches a revolution
• 09/19/11 Dems for Romney?
• 09/14/11 ‘Supercommittee’? More than stupor committee
• 09/07/11 Mitt Romney finds his (corporate) voice
• 09/01/11 The infallible Dick Cheney
• 08/31/11 This liberal says Perry is the ultimate conservative candidate
• 08/29/11 Wanted: More bite from Obama the Great Nibbler
• 08/10/11 How Rep. Austin Scott betrayed his Tea Party roots
• 08/09/11 The most powerful man on Earth?
• 08/08/11 The FAA shutdown and the new rules of Washington
• 08/04/11 Lt. Col. Allen West fires a round at the Tea Party
• 08/03/11 Government on autopilot
• 08/02/11 Dems mourn debt deal like death
• 07/27/11 Life imitates sport
• 07/26/11 Obama and Boehner take on Washington
• 07/21/11 Why Americans are angry at Congress
• 07/20/11 The new party of Reagan
• 07/18/11 Rob Portman, the boring Midwesterner who could bring sanity to the debt debate
• 07/13/11 John Boehner's bind
• 07/04/11 Stephen Colbert, Karl Rove and the mockery of campaign finance
• 07/01/11 President Puts Up His Dukes, As He Ought To
• 06/28/11 Rod Blagojevich verdict: All shook up
• 06/27/11 Progressives voice their anger at Obama
• 06/24/11 ‘Mission accomplished,’ Obama style
• 06/22/11 Jon Huntsman's first step toward oblivion
• 06/21/11 Scott Walker finds making bumper stickers is easier than creating jobs
• 06/20/11 A day of awkwardness with Mitt Romney
• 06/06/11 Hubris and humility: Sarah Palin and Robert Gates on tour
• 06/02/11 The Weiner roast
• 06/01/11 Congress clocks in to clock out
• 05/30/11 Hermanator II: No More Mr. Gadfly
• 05/24/11 How Obama has empowered Netanyahu
• 05/24/11 Pawlenty bends his truth-telling
• 05/20/11 Default deniers say it's all a hoax
• 05/18/11: Gingrich gives voice to moderation
• 05/17/11: Donald Trump and the House of Horrors
• 05/16/11: The medical mystery of Mitt Romney
• 05/12/11: The body impolitic: Schock photos should tempt lawmakers to cover up
• 05/10/11: Muskets in hand, tea party blasts House Republicans
• 05/09/11: The GOP debate: America -- and the party -- needs the grown-ups
• 05/05/11: Mitch Daniels, an alternative to scary
• 05/03/11: Obama's victory lap
• 05/02/11: How the journalist prom got out of control
• 04/28/11: Obama's birther day: Why did he lower himself by appearing in the briefing room?
• 04/27/11: Obama, lost in thought
• 04/24/11: Andrew Breitbart and the rifts on the right
• 04/22/11: Ten Commandments for 2012
• 04/21/11: Obama likes Facebook. Facebook likes Obama.
• 04/18/11: Without Nancy Pelosi, Obama is adrift
• 04/15/11: If progressives ran the world
• 04/14/11: Faith in political apostasy
• 04/13/11: One man's revolution is another's political expediency
• 04/11/11: Shutdown theatrics
• 04/06/11: Paul Ryan's irresponsible budget
• 04/05/11: Robots in Congress? Yes, we replicant!
• 04/04/11: Robert Gibbs, Facebook and the White House corporate placement service
• 04/01/11: Haley Barbour, the fat cats' candidate
• 03/31/11: Republican freshmen in House shut down compromise, and possibly the government
• 03/30/11: Coburn and Durbin, the dynamic duo of the debt crisis
• 03/28/11: The Obama doctrine: A gray area the size of Libya
• 03/24/11: Dems as Weiners
• 03/23/11: Obama's quick trip from tyrant to weakling
• 03/17/11: Who's afraid of Elizabeth Warren?
• 03/15/11: The underwear flap over Bradley Manning
• 03/10/11: In Senate's debt debate, talk isn't cheap
• 03/09/11: With Obama's new Gitmo policy, Administration officials had some 'splainin to do
• 03/02/11: Issa press aide scandal is like bad reality TV
• 02/25/11: Jay Carney: Mouthpiece for an inscrutable White House
• 02/14/11: The Donald trumps the pols at CPAC
• 02/09/11: Arianna Huffington's ideological transformation
© 2011, Washington Post Writers Group
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