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The Congressional Super Committee on Debt Reduction

Remember in August when we went through the debt-ceiling crisis and our country was on the brink of defaulting on our debts?  Politicians were at each other’s throats and no one was willing to back down from their respective principled positions.  It was not until the financial elites told the politicians that defaulting on debt would crash the entire financial system, did the politicians decide something needed to be done.  Even though they managed to stave off default they in essence kicked the can down the road. 

While there was consensus that the growing budget deficit and the mounting debt that our country has incurred needed to be curbed, there seemed to be no political appetite to tackle the problem head on.  In essence Congress said “Ok, so let’s agree to extend the debt ceiling now, and figure out what to do with the problem later.”

So they created a “Super Committee” of 12 members of Congress, 6 Senators and 6 Congressmen, half from the Republican Party, and half from the Democratic Party.  This “Super Committee” of twelve was created to represent the views of all 535 members of Congress, which is supposed to represent the 300 million + citizens of our country. 

However these members represent the most hardcore and radical elements within their parties and do not want to relent on their position. 

One member of the group is Republican Congressman Jeb Hensarling (Texas).  Hensarling is a staunch fiscal conservative who preaches favorable views about lassie-faire capitalism and neoliberal economic thinking.  He believes that everyone has a personal responsibility to themselves and that the government should stay out of people’s lives.  He was a leading Republican who opposed the original $700 Billion TARP bail-out that was passed by the Bush administration in 2008, based off of sheer principle.  On the other side of the aisle is Congressman James Clyburn, the Democrat from South Carolina, who was rated the 14^th most liberal member of the 535-member Congress by The National Journal, a non-partisan publication. 

When a committee is tasked to come up with a very complex solution to a simple problem, how can it be solved when forces from opposite sides are trying to score political points and fight to win?  Let’s hope for the nation’s sake that they can figure it out because what we have seen so far has not instilled any confidence in our “Super Committee”.  Here’s what we’ve seen so far:

Of the “Super Committee” members, all 6 Republican Senators and Congressmen are white males.  The Democrat members include 3 white males, 1 female, 1 African American, and 1 Hispanic. Considering half of our population is female, they are the most underrepresented group in this group, followed by minorities.