The 'Super Congress' Is a Scam Designed to Force Cuts To Popular Programs and Keep Taxes On The Rich

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/joshua-holland/37853/the-super-congress-is-a-scam-designed-to-force-cuts-to-popular-programs-and-keep-taxes-on-the-rich

In the months ahead, we're going to be treated to an endless parade of process stories about the Gang of 12 “super congress” that emerged from the debt ceiling deal. Each time a staffer leaks some bit of trivia about the internal machinations of this opaque committee, the Beltway media will write a flurry of stories about it, lawmakers will signal whether they might support this provision or that one and the pundits will sift through the tea leaves trying to predict whether this time the kind of “grand bargain” the Washington Post editorial board lusts after will finally come to pass.

It will all be a piece of Kabuki theater. The way this deal ends is fairly easy to predict – it's a set-up that will result in fairly deep cuts to domestic spending, won't raise taxes on the wealthy and will leave “defense” spending largely untouched – a process that will force cuts to important public services.

In the real world, here's the end result of that ludicrous battle over the debt ceiling: Tens of thousands of vulnerable people will lose health coverage, funding for Head Start will be cut, thousands of low-income students will be denied an education, and many more public sector workers will be added to the unemployment rolls. Neither the environment nor our decrepit 19th-century infrastructure will get their needed funds.

Many of the budget changes on the way will be highly unpopular, but no member of Congress will have to cast a vote on them. The social safety net won't be protected, but lawmakers will be – none will face their constituents' ire.

More at the link --

...while enjoying great benefits.

I can't tell which they are more of: cowardly or incompetent?

should be challenged on a constitutional basis, and that Norquist needs to be placed in prison, preferably in solitary confinement with no contact allowed ever.

The are coming for your SS and MEdicare and there is not a damn thing that will stop them now.

Of course, by the time the Grand Bargain is struck, it will be too late to do anything about it, and you should have said something sooner. When, exactly, will be the Goldilocks Moment, when it will be "just right" to say this whole process is nonsense? Sadly, that can be discerned only in retrospect.