The Congressional Super Committee is a Super Smokescreen!

Blowing Smoke

My local newspaper, the Mansfield (Ohio) News-Journal ran an editorial from the October 8, 2011 The (Youngstown, Ohio) Vindicator. It was the second paragraph from the editorial titled, “Super committee must live up to its name, which made me see red:

The “Super Committee” … has been charged with the herculean task of crafting a plan to reduce the federal government’s $15 trillion deficit by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years.

First off, I think the editors used the wrong term in describing the $15 trillion dollar Federal debt. They erroneously referred to it as “deficit.” My understanding is that the deficit applies to the current year’s excess expenditures beyond the revenue or taxes received. Deficit refers to short-term debt accumulated during the fiscal year. The overall Federal Debt is what the so-called “Super-Committee” is charged with reducing.

Second, the editors foolishly characterized the very modest and almost inconsequential reduction in the debt compared to the projected federal debt over the next 10 years  as “herculean.” What a joke.

At the current rate of overspending by this government, the Federal Debt will double in 10 years without the $1.2 trillion dollar reduction called for in the worthless Boehner-Reid-Obama debt deal crafted to “solve” the trumped up crisis that “threatened” to shut the government down this summer. The “reduction” will merely limit slightly the annual rate of growth of the overall federal debt.

What would really deserve the term “herculean” would be to cut current FY 2012 budget by $1.2 trillion dollars. That is the only action which would warrant the term “herculean!” The present Congress and President are truly incapable of any type of extraordinary efforts to curb government’s voracious spending habit!

We must go to a zero-based budget each year. We must demand that each agency or department justify their budget requests. We must move toward a balanced budget using the Cut, Cap and Balance approach or the (Representative Connie) Mack Penny Plan to get control of our runaway government spending that is killing our economy and country.

We need a new President and a new Congress in 2012, because this Congress and the GOP establishment headed by House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Party establishment headed by President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are absolutely unwilling and unable to do the job that they have been entrusted to perform.

The “Super Committee” is not a serious attempt to fix the Federal debt. It is a smokescreen put up by the President and Congress to pretend to be doing something, but all while incurring a larger and larger deficit each year!