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Nevada lawmakers react to failure of supercommittee
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STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Nevada lawmakers reacted with a mixture of disappointment, resignation and some finger-pointing on Monday after the deficit supercommittee declared it had failed to come up with a plan to harness the nation's spiraling debt.
The man behind the idea for the special deficit panel, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, blamed "tea party extremists and millionaire lobbyists," saying they placed Republicans under pressure to reject tax hikes on the wealthy that could have been a part of a "grand bargain" debt plan along with spending cuts and some changes to open-ended entitlement programs.
"The failure of the supercommittee is yet one more example of how Washington is broken and badly in need of common-sense leadership that will put partisanship aside to create jobs and cut spending," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.
Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., said he never did have high hopes for the group of 12 House and Senate members -- divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans -- who were charged with devising a plan to reduce government borrowing by at least $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years.
"I've said all along that a secretive group of 12 was not the answer to crippling unemployment and systemic government overspending," Heller said. "But this was the process Congress agreed on, and I hoped they could make it work."
Congress voted in August to create the special committee as part of a compromise that averted a federal default and raised the limit on how much money the government could borrow to keep running.
Reid, Berkley and Rep. Joe Heck, R-Nev., voted for the agreement. Heller voted against it. Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., was not yet in Congress.
Under the law that was enacted, the failure to come up with a debt plan now triggers automatic, across-the-board spending cuts of at least $1.2 trillion in most programs including those for defense, to take effect in January 2013.
Social Security and Medicare were made exempt from the automatic cuts, also known as "sequestration."
Already, there is speculation that Congress might act between now and then to scale back the cuts, or avert them in some way.
Reid, for one, said he will have none of it. His comments echoed President Barack Obama's threat to veto any attempt to roll back the automatic cuts, although he said Congress could take steps to shape them in the coming months.
"Make no mistake: We will achieve the more than $2 trillion in deficit reduction we agreed to in August," Reid said, referring to the $900 billion in cuts enacted as part of the initial agreement as well as the $1.2 trillion that would be part of sequestration.
"The sequester was designed to be painful, and it is. But that is the commitment to fiscal responsibility that both parties made to the American people," Reid said. "In the absence of a balanced plan that would reduce the deficit by at least as much, I will oppose any efforts to change or roll back the sequester."
Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.
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In 10 years there`ll be no armed forces budget because there`ll be no armed forces if the Bull Shredder in the nut house gets reelected in 2012. incidentally the economy may improve slightly because the cops just busted rep Kildie of michigan (D) for child molesting one of his 5 yr old relative.he`ll be another registered them-all-crap sex offender and be locked up..
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams The president and his uber partisan old school Chicago mob style politicians led by Reid in the Senate only think of one thing how to buy more votes with free goodies. Unfortunately someone has to pay for those goodies. that someone is you and I the taxpayers. Obama must go and hopefully the D majority in the US senate too.
BTW, taxes will be lowered on the people, Social Security will have no issues (whether real or Congressionally made up), Medicare will be solvent, no military cuts (although the fraud, waste and abuse needs to be investigated with fervor) and the deficit will be erased in LESS than ten years. Erased!!!
None of these lawmakers have anything to say for they are the problem. To all of their offices I have proposed the fix that does not require a Super Committee or much brain capacity. If they truly wanted to fix the economy they would have called by now. Our alleged representatives are not interested in creating jobs. They are not interested in growing the nation's GDP. They are not interested in lowering the debt and they surely are not interested in the people of Nevada. How is it that someone can propose a plan that blames no political party and does not require negotiations? If the alleged representatives want to fix the economy and at the same time put people back to work with no compromise necessary they can contact this news source and gain my information but it has already been given to their offices months ago; before the notion of a "partisan" bought and paid for Super Committee was a brain f**t of the current lack-of-leadership. Call me and let's get the people back to work.
WITH REID, BERKLEY, HELLER, HECK AND AMODEI AROUND, WHY WOULD WE NEED A SUPER COMMITTEE ANYWAY ? ALL CANDIDATES, ALL PARTIES SHOULD GET ONE TERM AND WE SHOULD VOTE THEM OUT AND NOT RE-ELECT THEM TO ANOTHER OFFICE.!!! LIFETIME POLITICIANS HAVE GOT TO END.
UNSUPERCOMMITTEE, NOW ISN'T IT ?
Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it. Mark Twain
Want your taxes hiked? Write a check to one of the “Tax Me More” funds or support the “Buffett Rule Act of 2011.” None of the millionaires would do it. http://www.fiscalaccountability.org/index.php?content=taxmsub1#
JKat5 - Those millionaires were called on to do just that and not one of them accepted the offer. The journalist had the form and everything on her Ipad, asked them straight out to sign it and send in their contribution and every single one had some lame excuse on why they couldn't do that. If you're going to make a big show of "raise my taxes" then step up to the plate and send in the cheque.
Here's an idea: If you're one of these so-called millionaires who thinks they don't pay enough taxes, then by all means, send in more than you owe! Go ahead. No one's stopping you. Does anyone honestly think any of our rich reps in Congress would voluntarily give up more tax moola? Why not back it up with action?