Success Through Failure

I am happy to live in a state with two strong women as my Senators. Patty Murray has been tasked with co-chairing the task force to solve our budget woes. Mission impossible. today she told Candy Crowley on CNN's State of the Union:

“As long as we have some Republican lawmakers who feel more enthralled with a pledge they took to a Republican lobbyist than they do to a pledge to the country to solve the problems, this is going to be hard to do.”

No kidding. I liked recent op eds by EJ Dionne and Paul Krugman pointing out that failure of the so called 'super committee', doomed from the start (obvious to any of us who have been paying attention), is a good thing. Both call out the news media. Dionne notes

"... genuine compromise can’t happen because Republicans refuse to accept any significant tax increases. This is not a partisan statement. It is just a description of the facts. It is maddening that the media are so desperate to avoid being attacked as “liberal” that they cannot describe the situation as it is."

Krugman says

... let me give a special shout-out to “centrist” pundits who won’t admit that President Obama has already given them what they want. The dialogue seems to go like this. Pundit: “Why won’t the president come out for a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes?” Mr. Obama: “I support a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes.” Pundit: “Why won’t the president come out for a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes?”

Hey Mr. Pundit, Obama supports a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes. So do most of the American people, so REPORT THAT. An epic fail of the committee means the Bush tax cuts will expire, as will a few others. The budget cuts, to the tune of $1.2 trillion, agreed to in last summer's deal will happen. This would add up to an over $7 trillion trimming from the deficit over 10 years. I can already hear the screaming from the GOP. Then maybe sanity and reason will prevail and we'll find the way forward. With a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes. What a concept.