Will the debt-cutting committee have the political will?

President Obama speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House, Aug. 8, 2011.
With the stock market plummeting on Monday, President Obama took to the podium in an attempt to calm the financial panic triggered by Friday's downgrade of U.S. debt by Standard and Poor's.


Our problems are "eminently solvable" the president said, and that "no matter what some agency may say, we have always been and always will be a AAA country."

Wall Street wasn't listening closely. The stock market finished down 635 points, or 5.5 percent.


Mr. Obama pointed to a lack of political will in Washington and an insistence on drawing lines in the sand, not a lack of plans or policies, as the cause for the current predicament.



He called for "common sense" and "compromise" in the face of a partisan battle in Washington that is sinking confidence in America's ability to right the ship, and once again called for a "grand bargain," which would combine spending cuts with tax reforms that will "ask those who can afford it to pay their fair share and modest adjustments to health care programs like Medicare."

He has been making the same point for the last several weeks, but his powers of persuasion have fallen short.

The Obama administration has blamed the lack of a more substantial debt deal on the intransigence of the GOP Tea Party faction, which refused to go along with a grand bargain that would likely have avoided downgrade or further uncertainty that would shake up the market and spook investors.


Former White House adviser David Axelrod said on "Face the Nation" that "this is essentially a Tea Party downgrade," and that the Tea Party's political "brinksmanship" during debt ceiling negotiations "brought us to the brink of a default."


Obama: America is still a "Triple-A" country
Downgrade puts new pressure on Congress to act
Who's to blame for the downgrade?

Republicans blamed Mr. Obama and the GOP campaigners did not mince their words. "America's creditworthiness just became the latest casualty in President Obama's failed record of leadership on the economy," said Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney.

Oozing near the surface of the battle to resolve difficult policy questions and economic problems is the 2012 election. For the GOP, the overriding goal is to win the election and make Mr. Obama a one-term president. It appears to be beyond a battle of ideologies and more of a winner takes all at whatever the cost for some of the party members.

The president and his party are hoping to get another four years to see through a "grand bargain," dissolution of the Bush tax cuts, mild adjustments to entitlements and other items on the Democratic agenda.

But the next phase of this battle to salvage the long-term debt issue will be in the hands of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, 12 people who must be appointed by August 16 by congressional leaders of the two parties.

September 16, 2011 - Joint Committee must hold their first meeting no later than 45 calendar days after enactment of the bill.


October 14, 2011 - Deadline for House and Senate Committees to submit recommendations to the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction.


November 23, 2011 - Deadline for Joint Committee to vote on a report that contains findings, recommendations and legislative language to carry out such recommendations. Requires a majority of the members of the Joint Committee for approval. The goal is $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade.


December 2, 2011 - If the committee report and legislative language are approved by the Joint Committee, deadline for the Joint committee to submit legislative language to the President, Vice President and Congress.

December 23, 2011 - Deadline for House and Senate to vote on Joint Committee deficit reduction bill.

If the Joint Committee fails to produce a report or legislative language by November 23, 2011 or if Congress does not enact the recommendations by December 23, $1.2 trillion across-the-board spending cuts are automatically triggered, includes domestic and military cuts.



January 31, 2012 - The Joint Committee terminated on January 31, 2012.

The question now is whether the panel of legislators will have the political will to do what the Congress and the White House were unable to do in making a serious dent in the deficit. If not, the long, hot summer of economic collapse will continue into 2012, and those seeking office from any party associated with the debacle will have to explain to voters, job seekers and pensioners why they failed to find common ground.