Link to post by DeSwiss about the Super Congress:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=4933385The Super Congress is included in BOTH debt reduction packages being considered now. Any compromise reached will almost surely include it.
Every time I have seen concerns about the Super Congress posted here, I see replies arguing that using committees to fast-track legislation is routine in Congress and not to get excited about it. Then the threads sink.
But IMO, to suggest that because committees have been used before for other types of legislation makes it a routine matter to put a Super Congress in place for DEBT reduction(!) is jaw-droppingly naive. Look at the trauma this country has been through just in the past two weeks, with Medicare and Social Security on the table.
If you put a Super Congress (Read: twelve of the most powerful representatives of the moneyed interests in Congress - you can bet your life Sanders or Frankin will not be on this panel...) in charge of cutting the debt, you are inviting more draconian cuts than we can even imagine with the system we have now.
No, it is NOT business as usual to allow a committee to fast-track and shove through legislation targeting the debt and entitlements. The use of this committee process will allow pushing through of legislation that would not be passable in the regular representative process...and you want to hand over DEBT REDUCTION...in this political climate?!
Wake up and look at who we are dealing with. We are already fighting like hell to protect core programs that should never, ever have been on the table in the first place. To suggest that handing debt reduction over to a Super Congress would be just like using a committee for any other purpose, at this time and in this political climate, is beyond all logic and comprehension.
I will say it again: people need to wake up and realize who we are dealing with. The Republicans are out to bring the country down, but too many Democrats are also disturbingly prepared to soak the poor for the benefit of the wealthy (did you see madfloridian's post about Hamiltonian Democrats?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph... ).
The situation of our poor and elderly is so precarious, and the voices defending them so few and far between, that to remove debt reduction from the ENTIRE Congress and put it in the hands of a moneyed few will be signing a death warrant for these programs. Either plan will give us a Super Congress at this point. The President is looking for a "compromise," which will likely mean cuts in entitlements PLUS the Super Congress to ensure that future cuts are easier to push through.
We have entered a very dark age for protection of the most vulnerable among us.