WASHINGTON, D.C. (MCT) — Unable to break the partisan stalemate over taxes and Medicare, the deficit-reduction supercommittee came to a quiet end as the co-chairs issued a statement saying no deal could be reached by the panel’s deadline.
“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,” said the statement from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas.
Leaders apparently calculated that the risk of failure was not as damaging as agreeing to a deficit reduction plan that would require serious compromise heading toward the 2012 election. Now voters will decide the tax and spending debate next year.
The committee had faced a Wednesday deadline to vote on a proposal to slash the nation’s deficits by $1.5 trillion over the decade.
Republicans refused to substantially raise taxes, and wanted to cut federal deficits largely by reducing spending on Medicare and other domestic programs. Democrats wanted a more equal balance of new taxes and spending cuts — a level of taxation the GOP could not accept.
The failure of the committee now triggers mandatory spending cuts that slice equally across defense and discretionary accounts, to begin in 2013.
But because those cuts will not happen until later, many in Congress hope they can be undone. And with the financial markets signaling there would not be a severe economic upheaval if the committee failed, the urgency for the panel, made up of six Democrats and six Republicans from the House and Senate, and their congressional leaders, appeared to diminish.
