The “Super Committee” is Neither

The recently passed S. 365 sets up a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, often referred to as the “super committee.” The committee is supposed to do several things but, if there is no agreement, automatic budget cuts across the board for Medicare, non-defense discretionary pending and defense spending will take place which would drastically harm the social services safety net for seniors, the disabled, pregnant women, and the unborn, among others. In Title IV Section 401(b) (3) (A) (i) of the Act the committee is charged to "provide recommendations and language that will significantly improve the short-term and long-term fiscal imbalance of the Federal Government." So, what the heck does that mumbo-jumbo mean? The new laws shall “significantly” improve the debt situation. “Significantly” is defined as:

“Having or expressing a meaning; meaningful; or, Having or expressing a covert meaning; suggestive; or, Having or likely to have a major effect; important; or, Fairly large in amount or quantity; or, relating to observations or occurrences that are too closely correlated to be attributed to chance and therefore indicate a systematic relationship.”
or defined as: “[I]n a significant manner: to a significant degree; or, it is significant; or, having meaning; or, having or likely to have influence or effect: important ; or, of a noticeably or measurably large amount; or, probably caused by something other than mere chance.” All of the Republican members appointed to the “super committee” by the Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and the House Speaker, John Boehner (R-OH) have pledged to Grover Norquist that they will not vote for any tax increases.  In effect, the most significant means of "short-term and long-term" deficit reduction cannot and will not be voted in favor of by any Republican member of the Joint Select Committee. The only report which may then pass is a report which the majority supports for severe cuts in non-defense discretionary programs and entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security. [More . . .]

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SEC busy destroying evidence regarding Wall Street crooks

In this month's Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi reports that the SEC is busy erasing the past, intentionally destroying entire files from past investigations, many of which would be relevant to investigating recent Wall Street misconduct:

The widespread destruction of records was brought to the attention of Congress in July, when an SEC attorney named Darcy Flynn decided to blow the whistle. According to Flynn, who was responsible for helping to manage the commission's records, the SEC has been destroying records of preliminary investigations since at least 1993. After he alerted NARA to the problem, Flynn reports, senior staff at the SEC scrambled to hide the commission's improprieties. As a federally protected whistle-blower, Flynn is not permitted to speak to the press. But in evidence he presented to the SEC's inspector general and three congressional committees earlier this summer, the 13-year veteran of the agency paints a startling picture of a federal police force that has effectively been conquered by the financial criminals it is charged with investigating. . . . [T]o date, federal and state prosecutors have yet to put a single senior Wall Street executive behind bars for any of the many well-documented crimes related to the financial crisis. Indeed, Flynn's accusations dovetail with a recent series of damaging critiques of the SEC made by reporters, watchdog groups and members of Congress, all of which seem to indicate that top federal regulators spend more time lunching, schmoozing and job-interviewing with Wall Street crooks than they do catching them. As one former SEC staffer describes it, the agency is now filled with so many Wall Street hotshots from oft-investigated banks that it has been "infected with the Goldman mindset from within."

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