United States Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction
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The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, colloquially referred to as the Supercommittee, is a joint select committee of the United States Congress, created by the Budget Control Act of 2011 on August 2, 2011. The act was intended to prevetnt the rapid process of sovereign default that would have resulted from the 2011 United States debt-ceiling crisis, and has been interpreted as a reaction to frustration over prolonged partisan political disputes during an uncertain economy struggling to recover from the late-2000s recession.On  November 21, the committee concluded its work, issuing a statement that began with the following：“After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee’s deadline”。
Operation
The Budget Control Act increased the debt ceiling by $400 billion in August 2011. Concurrently, it requires the federal government to make $917 billion in spending cuts over a ten-year period as a first installment,[2] in keeping with estimates from the Congressional Budget Office[15] that assume that the current laws will stay the same, including the expiration of the Bush tax cuts from 2001 and 2003 that were extended for two years in 2010. Under the plan, government revenues are projected to rise after 2012.
Recommendation
The committee is charged with issuing a recommendation by November 23, 2011 for at least $1.5 trillion in additional deficit reduction steps to be undertaken over a ten‐year period. This would be the second installment of deficit reduction measures. Possible areas to be examined by the committee include: revenue increases, including raising taxes; tax reforms, such as simplifying the tax code and eliminating some tax breaks and loopholes; military spending cuts; and measures to reform and slow the growth of entitlement programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.[16] According to White House economics adviser Gene Sperling, "everything is on the table."
Congressional vote
The committee's recommendations would then be put to a simple up or down vote by Congress by December 23, 2011.[5] This vote is not subject to amendments, House "majority of the majority" blocks, or Senate filibusters, thus guaranteeing a pure majority vote in both chambers. Commentators note that a single instance of one member deviating from their party's economic program would lead to a seven-member majority, and cause the plan to advance. If the committee fails to agree on a package or the full Congress fails to pass it, a so-called "trigger mechanism" would enact $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts to serve as the second installment of deficit reduction measures.These cuts would be split between the national security and domestic arenas, but the biggest entitlement programs would be excluded from these automatic cuts. One report suggests that the prospect of these across-the-board cuts would "give leverage to any faction that cares more about cutting spending than about increasing revenues or protecting the defense budget. A second debt ceiling increase of $500 billion is slated to go into effect regardless of whether Congress passes the joint committee's proposal, but subject to a congressional resolution of disapproval if the proposal is not passed.[citation needed] Together, the two increases in the debt ceiling allow borrowing to continue at projected levels until January 2013, beyond the 2012 presidential election.
Impasse and failure
In order for the committee to meet its deadline, the legislation would first have to be "scored" by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which takes 48 hours. On Monday, November 21, 2011, as several members met for a last minute meeting, a media frenzy proferred speculation on whether the committee could agree to terms by midnight. After the financial markets closed, the committee issued a statement which said it had failed to come to an agreement. Republican Congressional leaders Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House John Boehner both issued statements blaming President Obama for the impasse. Shortly after that President Obama addressed reporters in the White House briefing room blaming Republicans and issuing a veto threat regarding any attempt by Congress to cancel the $1,200,000,000,000 trigger mechanism.
Support
Representative Rob Andrews of New Jersey supports the idea as a way to "avoid a default" although he expressed concerns that it would take too long for lawmakers to learn the "nuances of Medicare and Medicaid" with respect to intricate reimbursement formulas. Supporters believe that the prospect of imminent across–the–board spending cuts if the committee's measures were not adopted would be sufficiently "distasteful to lawmakers" to prompt them to act and to impart a "strong incentive for bipartisan agreement. Representative Robert E. Andrews, Democrat of New Jersey, supports the overall deal as a way to avoid a default on federal debt obligations. But Mr. Andrews said: “I am very uneasy about the joint committee for a number of reasons. It takes people decades to learn the nuances of Medicare and Medicaid.” (New York Times)
Criticism
Criticism of the committee arrangement includes comments from lawmakers concerned by how rapidly the Budget Control Act legislation was put together; they objected to having little time to review the rules by which the committee would operate, and to the lack of input on the mechanism from public hearings or debate. Legislators from both parties expressed concern that the arrangement will "usurp their authority to write and revise legislation." Presidential candidate Representative Ron Paul suggested that members of Congress might be under "tremendous pressure" to vote for whatever emerges from the committee regardless of worthiness. Conn Carroll suggested the committee will not lead to any "meaningful entitlement reform". Senator Menendez predicted that the committee would become deadlocked since the most likely appointments would be a "stacked deck" of members opposed to new revenues or program cuts. A variety of watchdog groups, including Public Campaign and MoveOn.org, are concerned that lobbyists will influence what happens, and asked that lawmakers disclose meetings with lobbyists and refrain from political fundraising during the selection process.
—Standard & Poor's, August 2011
Analyst Fareed Zakaria predicted the committee would deadlock without a majority favoring a specific plan,  and wrote:  It's a punt. I mean, it's one more occasion where Congress has basically punted, kicked the can down the road, use what metaphor you want. It cuts $21 billion out of the 2012 budget, which is the only budget over which this Congress actually has any authority ... The Democrats are saying no cuts to entitlements. The Republicans are saying no taxes. That's great except we all know the only solution to our long-term debt problem is cuts in entitlements and new taxes.  Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said in the August 11, 2011 Republican presidential debate:  I think this super committee is about as dumb an idea as Washington has come up with in my lifetime. I used to run the House of Representatives. I have some general notion of these things. The idea that 523 senators and congressmen are going to sit around for four months while 12 brilliant people, mostly picked for political reasons, are going to sit in some room and brilliantly come up with a trillion dollars, or force us to choose between gutting our military and accepting a tax increase, is irrational. They're going to walk in just before Thanksgiving and say, 'All right, we can shoot you in the head or cut off your right leg, which do you prefer?' What they ought to do is scrap the committee right now, recognize it's a dumb idea, go back to regular legislative business, assign every subcommittee the task of finding savings. Do it out in the open through regular legislative order and get rid of this secret phony business.