Florida's congressional representatives quickly called out the dogs of partisan blame as the supercommittee was unable to make any bipartisan agreement on needed debt reduction on Monday.
Floridas Democrats charged that Republicans showed no willingness to negotiate as they wouldnt consider tax increases even if countered by larger cuts.
The failure of the congressionally appointed 12-member Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction -- better known as the supercommittee -- was the presidents fault for not providing direction, responded Florida Republicans.
Instead, the president and this administration would rather sit back and watch automatic cuts kick in that will be devastating to our military -- ripping $600 billion from defense in 10 years, U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-West Palm Beach, stated in a release. At a time when America's enemies are more emboldened than ever, our military needs to be supported, not shredded.
"Despite our inability to bridge the committee's significant differences, we end this process united in our belief that the nation's fiscal crisis must be addressed and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve," read a statement from committee co-chairmen U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Miami, called the committee a flawed idea from the start.
While I give credit to several of its members for making a good-faith effort, its fate was sealed by the presidents failure to put forward a plan to cut spending and his unbreakable obsession with raising taxes on job creators, Rubio stated in a release.
The consequences of this Washington-style leadership failure are not only a missed opportunity to rein in our debt, but also a step toward devastating cuts to our national security efforts. In sum, this threatens to leave us with a diminished economy, a less secure future and on track for our own Greece- and Italy-like day of reckoning.
We need to cut spending and save entitlements without enacting job-killing tax hikes that would hurt our economy. Until the American people rid Washington of politicians who are addicted to spending and intolerant of fundamental spending reforms, our job creators wont have the confidence to go out and do what they do best, and our people will continue to suffer."
Under the terms of the committee, if no deal could be reached by Monday, giving Congress time to review the proposal by the Nov. 23 deadline, automatic spending cuts, called sequestering, would go into effect.
The cuts include $600 billion to defense.
Obama said Monday he would veto any effort to block the sequestered spending cuts.
I am calling on President Obama to step up and be a leader and introduce legislation that will restore these automatic cuts to our military, West stated. We cannot put our country in danger because of partisan antics. The American people are sick and tired of Washington, D.C., and there's a good reason why. The failure of this supercommittee is an embarrassment to Congress and to the American people.
U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, said the nation will have to find money somewhere to prevent the automatic cuts that will go into place for defense.
Devastating cuts to natl defense w/o deficit agreement, Rooney tweeted. Economy & Security will suffer.
The committee was established in August out of the debt-ceiling crisis where Congress approved the Budget Control Act which increased the debt ceiling by $400 billion. The committee, made up of six Republicans and six Democrats, was directed to examine everything from entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to the tax code, military spending and even revenue increases.
Across the aisle, Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, announced she wasnt surprised or disappointed by the results of the committee which she didnt initially support when approved by Congress.
We did not get into this mess overnight and it was unrealistic to believe that a small group could or even should fix a decade-long problem in few weeks, especially when Republicans refused to raise net revenues, Brown stated in a release.
The last time Congress balanced the budget, we did it with a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. As a result, when President Clinton left office, we were operating with a surplus. But then we spent eight years living off the George W. Bush credit card, leaving us with a deficit of $1.2 trillion the day President Obama was sworn in. Last month, the Treasury department reported a budget deficit of $1.3 trillion for fiscal year 2011, almost identical to the deficit for 2010.
Why rush to fix a problem that is not getting worse when we have more important tasks at hand? Austerity does not put people to work. Everyone agrees what we need to do now is grow the economy through investments in infrastructure, education and clean energy and extended unemployment benefits. These are our priorities. I am relieved the supercommittee did not slash Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare as was widely expected. Thankfully, all of these programs are protected from the automatic cuts that will start in 2013. If anything, the failure of the supercommittee is a victory for the safety net so many Americans are relying on in these difficult times. Now, Congress needs to get to work.
Reach Jim Turner at jturner@sunshinestatenews.com, (850) 727-0859, or (772) 215-9889.
