Super Committee to the Rescue!

As their due date for coming up with a budget deal looms in the coming days, the congressional super committee is once again in the news. If these six Democrats and six members of the GOP fail to hammer out $1.5 trillion in budget cuts and increased revenue, there will be automatic cuts, big cuts, to government budgets.

            For the sake of argument, let’s assume that setting up this super committee was the way to go, the answer to our deficit problem. There are other matters in which this Congress has proven itself incapable of making any progress. Perhaps it is time to set up other super committees. I offer a few suggestions on issues that deserve this sort of added attention.

            With global warming presenting itself as our greatest crisis, and Congress incapable of acting on this problem, we should have a climate change super committee: a dozen lawmakers tasked with reducing the CO2 output of the United States to pre1990 levels. If these lawmakers fail in their task, tax loopholes for the oil industry would automatically close and a carbon tax would be established. With this revenue billions would be used to create green and carbon neutral industries.

            We’ve had too many people out of work for too long. What about an employment super committee? These six Democrats and six members of the Grand Old Party would reduce our unemployment to under five percent. If this group of lawmakers failed in their duty, a jobs program to employ hundreds of thousands, financed by a tax on our wealthiest citizens, would automatically go into effect.

            I imagine that there could be an entire Justice League of America of Super Committees to come to the rescue for additional conundrums this country has that that are going unresolved, a Get Us Out of Iraq Super Committee, a super committee to stop mountaintop removal, maybe even a super committee to get big money out of politics.

            Though these things need to be done, Washington will not set up special task force committees to take care of these problems. Super committee or no super committee, the reason these things are not getting done in Washington is because there is no political will to get them done and much money and lobbying guaranteeing that they don’t get done.

            The super committee is a charade. It was not set up because of the deficit. It was set up because there is money and lobbying that wants to do away with many governmental programs and benefits. And there are members of the Grand Old Party who have always wanted to do away with beneficial governmental programs. Through legislative muscling and intimidation they may very well achieve their goal of returning America to the 1920s, poor houses and orphanages included.