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November 18, 2011 at 09:33 AM
As D-Day for the deficit supercommittee to reach a deal is only five days away, it looks unlikely that an agreement will be reached.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” on Friday that, “The word today is that they may not get to some kind of agreement.” The reason, Jordan said, is that “it would be difficult” to win passage of a deficit reduction plan that includes more taxes.
Republicans aren’t budging on including taxes in any deficit proposal while Democrats are reluctant to allow significant changes to entitlement programs.
While the supercommittee’s deadline is next Wednesday, the committee needs to have its recommendations to the Congressional Budget Office by Monday so that the CBO can “score” the recommendations.
If a deal isn’t reached an automatic trigger would enact $1.2 trillion in spending cuts divided equally between defense and non-defense discretionary programs. However programs excluded from the automatic cuts would include Social Security, Medicaid, and veterans’ benefits.
In addition, as David Tittsworth (left), executive director of the Investment Adviser Association wrote in a recent blog post for AdvisorOne, the spending cuts would not go into effect until FY 2013, “thereby punting the pain until after the 2012 election. It’s also possible that the committee may come up with a partial deal that falls short of $1.2 trillion, in which case the automatic cuts would make up the difference between $1.2 trillion and whatever cuts are approved by Congress.”
