Community Impact of Supercommittee Failure

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President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden shake hands in the Oval Office following a phone call with House Speaker John Boehner securing a bipartisan deal to reduce the nation's deficit and avoid default, Sunday, July 31, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden shake hands in the Oval Office following a phone call with House Speaker John Boehner securing a bipartisan deal to reduce the nation's deficit and avoid default, Sunday, July 31, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Dysfunction turned out to be Kryptonite for the supercommittee.

The Budget Control Act of 2011 gave six Democrats and six Republicans the power to come up with a plan to cut the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion before the Congressional Thanksgiving recess. However, lawmakers bickered while the market fell.

It would be a sad commentary on our state of affairs if a decade-old political pledge to a corporate lobbyist were allowed to prevent bipartisan progress on our nations most pressing issues, James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., one of the Super 12 and Assistant Democratic Leader of the House, said in a statement. Yet with massive across-the-board budget cuts hanging over us like the sword of Damocles, that seems a possible outcome.

Amid global skittishness fueled partly by the debt crisis in Europe, the supercommittees impasse was linked to a 2.5 percent drop in the Dow Jones industrial average, which fell roughly 300 points to 11,500 around noon Monday. It also meant no extensions, at the moment, for unemployment benefits or payroll tax cuts.

With no super heroes to save the day, Democrats are blaming Republicans, and Republicans are blaming Democrats. They clashed primarily over tax breaks for the wealthy and spending cuts for domestic programs from Social Security to health care.

The claim that Medicare, Medicaid and other health-care costs are major drivers of our debt crisis is an overstatement, said Alfred Chiplin Jr., managing attorney at the Center for Medicare Advocacy in Washington, D.C. We must be sure that philosophical differences about the nature, role and size of government are not taken out on the backs of the poor, the elderly, those with disabilities or on children.

The National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) also opposes cuts in domestic programs and had been encouraging citizens to tell the supercommittee NO cuts to HIV/AIDS programs as lawmakers made 11thhour efforts to reach some sort of face-saving measure.

NMAC opposes any cuts to discretionary budget line items, which fund domestic or global HIV/AIDS programs, said Kali Lindsey, the councils director of legislative and public affairs.

Research advancements demonstrate that thoughtful and strategic investments along with assured access to necessary care, treatment and support services can bring an end to the HIV epidemic in the United States and around the globe.

Sentiment among the general public seemed to mirror that of their elected officials, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. Fifty-seven percent of Democrats opposed spending cuts in the poll released on Monday, while 59 percent of Republicans were against tax increases. Republicans favor extending the Bush tax cuts, which expire at the end of 2012, from 39.6 percent to 28 percent for the wealthiest Americans.

By Yanick Rice LambSpecial to the NNPA from the Afro-American Newspaper

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