Superfail

Who is surprised that the United States Congress Joint Select Committe on Deficit Reduction, or the so-called "Supercommittee", will fail to find consensus on mandated budget cuts of $1.5T over ten years?  What makes this failure all the more absurd is the fact that $1.5T over 10 years is WHOLLY INADEQUATE and wouldn't even begin to set upright the fiscal ship of state.

It will be interesting to hear the blame game on the national talk shows, but I think one observation is important here: on average, the members of this committee (and the ranking members of the House and Senate for that matter) have served for a LONG TIME.

For example, the Senate members of the committee have served for an average of 15.5 years (and, this average takes into account two freshman members who haven't even served a full year yet), while the House members have served and average of 13.3 years.

How could this degree of incumbency possibly contribute to Superfail, as people are starting to call this fiasco, you might ask?  Because anyone who has served in Congress for so many successive terms (an average of over three in the case of the Senators if you discount the freshman, and an average of nearly seven in the case of the House members) has obviously placed a higher premium on their own political survival than on making the courageous decisions that they are empowered and obligated by the U.S. Constitution to make.

What has been sadly lost in terms of an ethos in Congress is the notion of the elected official as a public servant who leaves a successful business, farm, medical practice, etc., for a short time in order to advance the public good and then returns to private life.  Because of the exponential degree by which Congress has amassed authority over the decades, our elected officials have become addicted to the power of their office and cannot abide to surrender the reigns, even when it is time for them to move on.  Instead, Congress has gradually become overwhelmed by career politicians who have mastered the art of survival at the expense of the political leadership and risk-taking that is sorely needed.

That is why I believe that the time is come to once again debate the idea of congressional term limits in order to inject fresh blood into the body politic.

If the members of the "Supercommittee" cared more about the future of this great nation than their own prospects for re-election, they would have reached an agreement and sent a message to the country that democracy DOES work.  Instead, they failed and we are all that much more cynical as a result.