The "supercommittee" is the only game in town. Or so says Ezra Klein.
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Thursday, September 15, 2011
Ezra Klein's Wonkbook 
Here's the supercommittee's problem right now: it's really the only game in town. Want a $4 trillion grand bargain on the deficit? Better get them to do it, as Congress sure ain't lifting a finger through the regular order. Want a jobs bill? Best ask the supercommittee, as there aren't enough working days left on the House's calendar to get one done otherwise. Want a particular policy tweak or program reform? Better try and make a bankshot argument about its capacity to reduce the deficit, as there's little chance that small, smart ideas can pass on their own this year.
So pity the poor members of the supercommittee, who are being asked to be all things to all people, and who are inevitably going to fail. Some of them, in fact, are already trying to prepare the rest of Washington to be disappointed. In today's edition of The Hill, Alexander Bolton reports that a "key lawmaker" on the committee is privately signaling that there won't be a grand bargain emerging out of the process. Congress lacks consensus on issues like Medicare spending, tax increases, and defense cuts, and so too does the supercommittee, which, as you may remember, is made up of members of the very Congress that has repeatedly failed to strike a bargain of this type. The fact that the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction got nicknamed "the supercommittee" doesn't mean it actually wears a cape and can leap over partisan gridlock in a single bound.
But Greg Sargent reports that Sen. Jeff Merkley has an idea that's just small enough for the supercommittee to adopt. He wants the supercommittee to ask the Congressional Budget Office to score its proposal for its impact on jobs. The CBO has done this before, and all it would take is a request from the committee's chairs for them to do it again. It wouldn't require anyone to come to any new ideological epiphanies, or strike any grand new bargains. It would just force them to think hard about the impact their proposals will have on the labor market, and submit their conclusions to the independent analysis of the CBO. That won't force them to go big, or do anything significant to create jobs. But it's a small step in the right direction. And realistically, that may be all we can ask for from the supercommittee.
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