Obama has asked the group, widely dubbed the “supercommittee,” to expand its mandate and come up with enough in savings to offset the costs of his nearly $450 billion jobs plan, as well.
The added burden has some members of Congress concerned that the group is now expected to be not just super but downright magical.
“It’s like they’re becoming the Twelve Apostles. They’re going to dictate the law,” said Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona, a liberal Democrat who fears that the committee will recommend cuts he opposes. “It really worries many of us.”
Already, the bipartisan panel of six senators and six representatives has been trying to come to an agreement on a strategy to tackle the government’s debt by Nov. 23.
That meant the group was seeking a deal on spending and taxes in 10 weeks that has eluded Congress and the White House for years.
Finding the savings to pay for Obama’s package of tax cuts and infrastructure spending would mean broadening the committee’s deficit-reduction target by nearly a third.
Obama has promised that he will lay out a proposal Sept. 19 to help the committee meet its original mandate and pay for his job creation proposals.
The president said his deficit-reduction proposal will include spending cuts, modifications to Medicare and Medicaid, and tax increases for the wealthy and big corporations.
“We can reduce this deficit, pay down our debt and pay for this jobs plan in the process,” he told Thursday’s joint session of Congress. “But in order to do this, we have to decide what our priorities are.”
But in so doing, Obama injected his leading election-year legislative initiative into a fragile supercommittee process that will be dependent on a level of cooperation and goodwill that is uncommon in Congress today.
The panel opened its work this week striving for a different tone.
Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) told colleagues that their mission came from the American people, “who wonder if we still can — and desperately want us to — sit down like adults” and find agreement.
“My goal for this committee is to begin by seeking common ground,” Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) told the group. “Surely, there are areas where we can agree.”
But after the president spoke Thursday, the hard-edged partisan rhetoric returned, as the panel’s Republicans criticized Obama for adding to the supercommittee’s responsibilities.
The panel’s Republican chairman, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.), said the proposal made the “already arduous challenge of finding bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction nearly impossible.”
Loading...
Comments