If the super committee does not come to agreement,

[murray hill farm]

What exactly does happen? What is it that is automatic cuts, etc? What happens regarding cuts and increased taxes? Thanks.

[eleny]

1. Here's the Wiki page which gives some details

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress_Joint_Select_Committee_on_Deficit_Reduction

I expect that along with the mandated cuts all hell will break loose with much finger pointing and recriminations.

[gateley]

3. My concern about the "national security" cuts is that it would affect

service men and women/veterans. You KNOW they're not going to pull $$$ from Homeland Security.

The only bright spot is that the largest "entitlement programs" would be exempt (and that's got to mean SS and Medicare/Medicaid, right?) but there are so many other programs out there that people rely on which have already been shredded.

[TheWraith]

5. Actually, it does cut homeland security.

Veterans benefits are exempted from any cuts.

[gateley]

6. Thank. You. I feel MUCH better! Sounds like it might not be that

bad if they don't come to an agreement??? What do you think?

[TheWraith]

7. I think there's little chance of a committee agreement passing.

Either the committee will fail to report something at all, or it'll get shot down in Congress. That's pretty much been my assumption since this thing went forward. There's simply way too much sausage making involved to produce something both sides are willing to accept. Look how hard it was to get the debt ceiling deal in the first place, and that's something where almost everyone realized a deal HAD to get done. This has no degree of urgency to it.

[gateley]

9. And if that's the outcome, what do you think will be the result

of the 'failsafe' measures? Will implementation hurt, harm or essentially do nothing to change the current situation?

And I have to think that the consequences won't be that detrimental to either side otherwise they'd MAKE something work.

Thanks for any input/opinion. I'm just trying to understand this and figure out if I should get REALLY mad or not. :7

ETA: I just found this article and posted: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2241630

[murray hill farm]

4. Thanks Eleny!

[Cali_Democrat]

2. Cuts only

No taxes increases. No matter what, we're looking at significant cuts programs that benefit the middle class and the poor. Obama did a terrible job of negotiating.

It angers me even more to know that this whole thing was a huge ploy by the GOP because they knew Obama was a weak negotiator. The debt ceiling was raised without question dozens of times in the past, but they successfully blackmailed Obama this time, the first time the debt ceiling has had to be raised while he's President.

The GOP got everything they wanted. Either way, they win and the poor and the middle class lose.

[TheWraith]

8. Uh, no. Sorry to break up your anti-Obama party with actual facts.

But the GOP actually got little to nothing they wanted out of the deal.

Some budget cuts? Yes. But 50% comes out of defense, right off the top. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, veterans' benefits, and ALL means-tested programs--meaning anything aimed at low income Americans--is completely and totally exempt from any cuts.

The cuts that are there mostly do not kick in until 2013, meaning that if we win back the House, we can rewrite the deal.

And even then they're non-program specific, so we can fight item by item on protecting important programs rather than having everything slashed by a uniform percentage.

No surprise then that after the deal came out, the Republican base felt pretty universally screwed, since they didn't get any of what they really wanted.