Posts Tagged Debt

Ruth Marcus: It’s going to be a long slog – The Washington Post

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Opinion, Perspective on March 2, 2013


Ruth Marcus

Ruth Marcus

Opinion Writer

It’s going to be a long slog

By Ruth Marcus, Published: February 28

Paul Ryan says he doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about Republicans being blamed for the pain inflicted by the budget sequester. The bruises, in his view, go with the territory. 

“We have to get right in our minds that the bully pulpit will always probably get better press than we will,” the House Budget Committee chairman and the 2012 Republican vice-presidential nominee told me Wednesday evening in an interview. “That cannot deter us. . . .The sequester will happen, and that will be occurring all along until the president is willing to do an agreement that deals with the entitlement problem and the debt crisis.”

To listen to Ryan is to understand that the country should brace for a months-long slog, from sequester to continuing resolution to, yes, another debt-ceiling showdown sometime this summer.

Really, I ask, the debt ceiling, again? I thought Republicans were determined to avoid replaying that losing hand. “Not this time,” Ryan said, before the words were even out of my mouth.

“The debt problem is getting worse,” he said. “We’re not leaving this session of Congress until we have a down payment on the problem.”

That stance might not be so worrisome — indeed, it might be welcome, because the debt problem is real and curbing entitlement spending essential — were it not for the insistence of Ryan and fellow Republicans that the down payment be composed entirely of spending cuts.

That’s no surprise, but one insight that emerges from talking to Ryan is the degree to which his zeal for tax reform drives the refusal to consider new revenue. The general Republican allergy to taxes and the party’s specific unwillingness to swallow another increase, on top of the rate rise agreed to as part of the fiscal-cliff deal, is part of what drives the current no-new-taxes attitude, but only part. There is some method to this anti-tax madness.

In making the cliff deal, White House officials had bet that dangling the lure of tax reform before Republicans would lead them to cough up hundreds of billions more in additional revenue.

In fact, as Ryan explains it, exactly the opposite may be true. The extra revenue provided by the cliff deal provided the cushion needed to accomplish tax reform — a higher base from which to start trimming loopholes and lowering rates.

At the same time, however, only so much pruning is politically palatable. So closing enough loopholes to produce additional revenue — on top of what is needed to pay for the rate-trimming — is difficult. “Been there, done that,” Ryan says of new tax revenue.

I disagree, vehemently, with Ryan’s assessment of the proper mix of tax revenue and spending cuts to deal with the debt. Much more than the $700 billion or so raised in the fiscal cliff deal is needed to get the debt under control without imposing damaging cuts.

But I think he makes two legitimate, interconnected points. First, where’s the president’s budget? “I’ve never seen such staggering disrespect for the budgeting process,” Ryan said.

The budget was due, by law, the first Monday in February; now, it probably won’t be out until sometime in March.

The White House says that the delay is due to fiscal-cliff wrangling and the cumbersome process of updating discretionary spending numbers once the deal was struck. But the document ought to have been out by now — not because failing to have the president’s budget delays action on Capitol Hill but because the public is owed an overview of the president’s blueprint for governing.

Second, and related, how precisely does the president propose to rein in entitlement spending? The White House points to its offer from the last negotiations with House Speaker John Boehner and says that remains on the table. It cites earlier budget proposals on Medicare and puts it all together in a blog post that confirmed its willingness to change the formula for calculating Social Security cost-of-living increases. But, really, a blog post? What about a plan that the president himself explains, and sells, to the country?

“He never gives the public an honest account of what he’s willing to do on entitlements,” Ryan said of the president. “Trimming a statistic,” he sniffed of the proposed Social Security tweak, “is not entitlement reform.”

Ryan didn’t expect to be reliving what he describes as budget “Groundhog Day.” At this point in a Mitt Romney administration, Ryan imagined, he would be maneuvering to pass the grand debt-reduction plan.

“Mitt and I were going to bring to Congress a plan to fix this this year and we were going to launch a charm offensive with Senate Democrats to work with them to do it,” Ryan said.

So much for charm offensive. This is going to be trench warfare.

 Ruth Marcus: It’s going to be a long slog – The Washington Post.

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Are People Really Asking for Credit Scores on their First Dates? | Alternet

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Social, Society on December 27, 2012


Are People Really Asking for Credit Scores on their First Dates?

“Scoring on the first date” takes on a whole new meaning.

December 26, 2012 

 

 

 

American dating culture just reached a new, almost inconceivable low. According to the New York Times, young singles have a new number they are using to evaluate potential partners: their credit scores.

Apparently, a host of Web sites have sprung up catering to singles looking for a good-credit-wielding mate, including Creditscoredating.com and datemycreditscore.com; while an increasing number of young people have confessed to asking a potential partner’s score on the first date. A bad score, some say, can tank a fledgling relationship. A high score, on the other hand, can fast-track one’s dating application—I mean, er, insert phrase that makes young daters sound less like a mortgage lending company.

First things first: For anyone who has been living under the rock of delusion for the last five years, a credit score is a numerical analysis of a person’s debt history that is supposed to predict how likely he or she will be to pay back a loan. Under the most popular measure, FICO, the magic number ranges from 300-850 — with 850 being the Moby Dick of all credit scores, and anything below 400 being analogous to scoring 200 on the SATs simply for writing one’s name.

So, in other words, more and more young people are choosing potential partners not because of shared interests or values, expressions of love and respect, or even a shallow appreciation for someone’s bangin’ body—but because of how able they’ve been to pay back their past debts.

In terms of sheer inhumanity, evaluating a potential partner based on his or her credit score surpasses other absurd metrics, such as the illusive size 0 dress or size 16 dress shoes.

First, it reflects the almost insane levels of control and power that lenders wield in a highly debt financed economy. Since 1980, individual debt has increased steadily as housing prices soared, wages remained stagnant and everything became so damn expensive that Americans increasingly relied on cheap credit simply to put roofs over their heads, food in their mouths and their kids through college. Remember the era when Henry Ford priced his cars cheap enough for his workers to buy a Model T outright? Today, the total auto debt stands at just under $1 trillion, dwarfed, of course, by mortgage debt at a staggering $8 trillion. The average college student who graduated in 2011 carries nearly $27,00 in student loan debt alone.

The fact that whether or not people are able to pay back these debts has become a measure of romantic eligibility reflects how shockingly acceptable we think this debt-based economic system is—and how much we’ve been tricked into thinking that one’s finances are a measure of his or her moral and ethical character. 

Even more disturbing, credit scores — particularly in the wake of the highly racialized subprime-lending crisis — is far from an objective, color-blind number. As the Washington Post reports: “The implosion of the subprime lending market has left a scar on the finances of black Americans—one that not only has wiped out a generation of economic progress but could leave them at a financial disadvantage for decades…. credit scores of black Americans have been systematically damaged, haunting their financial futures.”

It’s a well-proven fact that nearly all of the major mortgage companies discriminated in their subprime lending based on race. Three of the largest lending companies–Wells Fargo, Bank of America and SunTrust—have already settled with the U.S. Department of Justice over charges of racial discrimination in mortgage lending. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, this discrimination held true even when the  home buyers had good credit scores.

“Among borrowers with a FICO score of over 660 (indicating good credit), African Americans and Latinos received a high interest rate loan more than three times as often as white borrowers,” explains the Center For Responsible Lending’s 2011 report.

To judge potential dating partners based on credit score, therefore, means African Americans and other people of color that got screwed by the mortgage industry now won’t get screwed in the bedroom. That seems from fair, doesn’t it? It’s almost like the financial industry was able to boil down white privilege into a single number, and then pretend it has nothing to do with race, then sell it to single Americans as a measure of other people’s self-worth and future eligibility. No wait… that’s exactly what it’s like.

Luckily, not everyone — or even most people — are buying (literally) into this trend piece. As one commenter on the Times’ Web site wrote:

This article is so insane on so many levels that I don’t know where to start or even why to start…Unfortunately, it portrays our society with values somewhere on par with a pack of piranhas. It is sad to see these sort of values presented as “normal” and ‘conventional”. And we wonder why our society is so sick.

Why am I not surprised to find something like this in the business section? This article is better than a major ad campaign for the credit scoring companies.

Anyone willing to bet $20* that this man would make a perfectly fine romantic partner — regardless of his credit score?

 Are People Really Asking for Credit Scores on their First Dates? | Alternet.

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We Need Growth, and Growth Requires Reform – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Debate on August 30, 2012


 

We Need Growth, and Growth Requires Reform

Erskine Bowles

Erskine Bowles was the co-chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

AUGUST 29, 2012

Getting our economy growing is our most pressing economic problem. But there can be no sustainable economic growth as long as we face America’s enormous debt overhang. If we don’t put our nation’s fiscal house in order, we face the most predictable economic crisis in history.

Solving this economic crisis the right way means avoiding the large, immediate, indiscriminate cuts and tax increases that are on the horizon, from the “sequestration” deal.

We should be careful not to cut too deep too soon. But failing to deal with the debt is the real risk we just plain can’t afford.

One of the key principles set out by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which I co-chaired with former Senator Alan Simpson, was that a debt-reduction plan must be phased in gradually so as not to disrupt a very fragile economic recovery.

Our commission’s plan would reduce the deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade, but would do so in a way that encourages, rather than hinders, economic growth and stability.

The real short-term risk to the economy isn’t a carefully thought-out deficit reduction plan, but the mindless spending cuts and tax increases — known as the “fiscal cliff” — that are scheduled to go into effect at the beginning of next year.

Allowing those deep and abrupt measures to occur would put us into a double-dip recession. At the same time, continuing on our current path by punting these measures would send a dangerous message to the markets that America is not willing or able to deal with our debt.

The only responsible course of action is to replace the fiscal cliff with a gradual and thoughtful plan to save at least $4 trillion over the next decade and put the deficit on a clear downward path relative to the economy.

Such a plan can lay the foundation for sustained economic growth through a combination of debt reduction, comprehensive tax reform, and maintenance of important investments in education, infrastructure, and high-value research and development.

We should be careful not to cut too deep too soon. But failing to deal with the debt is the real risk we just plain can’t afford.

 We Need Growth, and Growth Requires Reform – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com.

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The Budget Gap Is Too Big for Small Solutions – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Debate on August 30, 2012


 

A Problem Too Big for Small Solutions

Maya MacGuineas

Maya MacGuineasis the president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

AUGUST 29, 2012

The federal debt is the nation’s most pressing economic problem because our dangerously high debt levels are a threat on every issue — be it jobs, growth, competitiveness or public under-investment. The deficit is already harming the economy, and could eventually lead to a devastating fiscal crisis.

To suggest we must decide between debt reduction and economic recovery is to present a false choice. To the contrary, we cannot achieve one without the other. The key will be to implement a comprehensive debt deal large enough to fix the problem, phased in gradually enough so as not to derail the recovery, and designed to promote economic growth through reforms to the tax code and cuts in government spending that protect productive government investments.

We must be willing to reform all parts of the budget, including health care, Social Security, defense and taxes.

The upcoming fiscal cliff will soon cause the moment of reckoning. If we hurdle ourselves off the cliff, doing too much deficit reduction, too fast, and in the wrong ways, we will plunge the nation back into recession; whereas if we punt, we will surely endure further downgrades and quite possibly frighten credit markets into no longer favoring the U.S.

Instead, we must be willing to use this moment as the first step of putting in place a comprehensive debt deal. We will have to be willing to reform all parts of the budget — including health care, Social Security, defense and taxes. Doing so would not only be good policy, but good politics. Already, more than 140,000 Americans have signed a petition called Fix the Debt, asking our leaders to pass a comprehensive debt plan.

Any plan will have to be bipartisan, because quite frankly this will be just too hard for either party to do alone. And if we let the presidential election deteriorate into political posturing, we will make the job of passing the needed reforms even harder. It’s not enough for the candidates to accuse each other of touching the budget’s sacred cows; they must present their realistic plans to fix the debt — plans in which those sacred cows will have to be touched.

Changes will have to be made. We can do it on our own terms, or we can wait until we are hit with a crisis and are forced to — as we have seen in Greece and Portugal. Let’s hope our leaders are willing to come together to fix the debt while we still have time.

 The Budget Gap Is Too Big for Small Solutions – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com.

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News Flash: It is Illegal for Debt Collectors to Stalk Debtors on Facebook or Threaten to Kill Their Dogs – Credit Slips

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Debt, Money on June 29, 2012


News Flash: It is Illegal for Debt Collectors to Stalk Debtors on Facebook or Threaten to Kill Their Dogs

posted by Nathalie Martin

Do any of you read creditcards.com? It is a great source of info on various topics, not just credit cards. Today’s story featured three debt collection horror tales, as well as a state of the nation of nasty collection efforts. According to the story, in 2011, the FTC received 180,000 complaints about debt collectors, an increase of over 40,000 from 2010. In one case, a debt collector filed a lawsuit against a California debt collector, hired by a funeral home, who threatened to dig up the body of the debtor’s daughter — and also to shoot her dog. Here is a run-down of three other featured stories. 

In the first one entitled “terrorized by text,” Jessica Burke fell behind on her car payments. She called the financing company, and they agreed to give her extra time to pay. But the next day, she got a call from a man using a fake name who threatened to sue. He got her address and other private information from her cell phone company (say what?) by impersonating her father and asking to be added to her account. He called and texted and called and texted, after some time of which she called the police, who ordered the collector to stop contacting her. But the texts continued for weeks, coming from a disguised number and implying that he was watching her. In one, he called her “Porky Pig” and a “200-pound slob” and added, “I got picture messages of you today.” Late one night, she says, he texted her, claiming he was outside her house. She says: “It was

11 o’clock at night, I lived in a very rural area and I was home by myself. I was terrified.”  She ultimately got a judgment of $33,312 against the debt collector, who told her lawyer he had no intention of paying.

In tale number two, entitled “get your gun,” the debt collector called West Virginia homemaker Diana Mey about a debt owed by a son that had not lived there for eight years. The debt collector left a message on Mey’s home answering machine. “It was a very ominous message that implied legal action,” Mey says. Later, after requesting that the debt collector stop contacting her, the calls continued, and now caller ID suggested that the calls were coming from the local sheriff’s department.

“I called the sheriff’s department and said, ‘Is somebody trying to get ahold of me?’ They said ‘No.’” in one late-night call, a deep male voice on the other end asked for Diana, using a vulgar slur. He then went on to make graphic threats of sexual assault. Horrified, Mey told him she was recording the call.  After she hung up, Mey called 911 to report the incident. Home alone, she got her husband’s gun and hung it on her bedpost that night. She says: “I was literally shaking I was so scared.”

Mey sued the company, Global AG, also known by several other names, including Reliant Financial Associates. Alas, the collection company’s attorney didn’t show up in court, so a judge listened to Mey’s testimony and the super-vulgar tape with a local TV station filming. The judge awarded Mey a judgment of more than $10.8 million, but of course collection will be another story.

Tale number three involved facebook stalking, in a case in which Kathryn Haralson in Florida fell behind on her car payments. The bill collectors called the debtor, her office, her father, her brother, her husband, and her daughter, who was away at college. The collector dialed her husband’s cell phone so much that he had to stop answering it and missed several business calls, she says. The collector called her brother at work enough to jeopardize his job and refused to stop, she says. Then he tracked Haralson down on Facebook and wrote: “Good day. Please contact Mr. Rice at MarkOne regarding a personal business matter,” followed by his phone number. She found a lawyer and is prepared to sue. No kidding!

Check out the whole story (this was most of it) and get some useful tips for consumers for dealing with this sort of thing.

 News Flash: It is Illegal for Debt Collectors to Stalk Debtors on Facebook or Threaten to Kill Their Dogs – Credit Slips.

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China Returns As Net U.S. Treasury Buyer – 24/7 Wall St.

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in China on June 16, 2012


 

China Returns As Net U.S. Treasury Buyer

Posted: June 15, 2012

A new report from the U.S. Treasury called the Treasury International Capital Report is showing that, at least for now, China (and other nations in total) remains a net buyer of U.S. Treasury debt.  In the month of April, foreigners were net buyers of longer-term U.S. securities.

Treasury debt held by China rose by $1.5 billion to $1.146 trillion. This may not sound like much, but it is important because China was
 a net seller of Treasury debt to the tune of about $11.2 billion.  This is no ‘back to normal’ yet for China but it is still showing that the U.S. may be the least ugly debtor in a world of deadbeats.

Japan reduced its holdings again but remains very high with over $1.06 trillion in total Treasury holdings.

One key issue is that foreign investors as a total purchased a net $37.26 billion in April, and that is before the global concerns really started to grow in May.  March’s net foreign buying of Treasuries was $20.09 billion.

The United States gets to keep financing its deficits with foreign capital.  For now.

JON C. OGG

China Returns As Net U.S. Treasury Buyer – 24/7 Wall St..

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Free Wood Post – Paul Ryan Tells Americans To Quit Their Jobs And Stop Buying Food In Order To Pay Their Bills

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Humor/Parody on May 30, 2012


Paul Ryan Tells Americans To Quit Their Jobs And Stop Buying Food In Order To Pay Their Bills

March 22, 2012

By Sarah Wood

According to a statement made by Paul Ryan (R-WI) after he released his latest budget proposal, he told struggling Americans that in order to get back on their feet they should quit their jobs and stop buying food to focus on paying down their bills.

It’s really this simple. In order for someone to pay their bills they need to make some cuts in their everyday life. One of the biggest expenses that a person needs to pay for is food for themselves and for their family. Imagine if they just cut that expense out. There would be so much money left over to pay down their other debts. And what better way to really buckle down and focus on reducing spending and paying current debts than by quitting a job. So much time is wasted by finding ways to bring in money. That time could be better spent looking at ways to save money, cut spending on day-to-day items, and look towards a brighter future. 

Well with this “common sense” thinking in Congress it’s no wonder we’re in the pickle we’re in. Here I was thinking that if we cut spending on unnecessary luxury items, and found ways bring in extra revenue, debts would be lowered, and no one would have to go without food.

Ryan’s budget proposal reflects his statement to Americans. He feels we should cut crucial programs for the poor, women, elderly, etc. all the while keeping tax breaks for the wealthy, extending oil subsidies, and increasing military spending. It seems his plan would actually increase the deficit. My question to Ryan is, “who is going to cover the expenses if we are bringing in less money, but spending more on the wealthy and the interests of the wealthy?”

Bringing in less money and cutting essential needs doesn’t seem to be the best way to reduce the deficit, especially considering the extra burden that will place on the middle and working class, but who knows? Maybe Paul Ryan knows something we don’t. Maybe ending a revenue stream is the best way to pay down a debt. Who am I to say?

 Free Wood Post.

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Should Greece Default? – NYTimes.com

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Banking, Finance on February 13, 2012


February 13, 2012

Should Greece Default?

By DANIEL POLITI
 

A protest in Athens on Sunday.

Yannis Behrakis/ReutersA protest in Athens on Sunday.

 

As Greek lawmakers passed a deeply unpopular austerity bill amid huge protests to secure another bailout, many are wondering whether the country should embrace a default.

The Irish Independent thinks it’s only a matter of time. “At some stage over the next few weeks, maybe just days, matters will come to a head, Greece will default on its debts and the country will either leave or be ejected from the euro.” Stefan Kaiser, of Der Spiegel, agrees: if negotiators tried “being honest for a change” they would realize that there’s no option but bankruptcy.

For Panagiotis Sotiris, of the Greek Left Review, the real “question is not if Greece is going to default but how.” That’d be better anyway, writes Costas Lapavitsas in the Guardian: Athens should abandon “the charade of voluntary haircuts” and instead “default in a sovereign and democratic way by immediately declaring a cessation of payments.”

There are skeptics. A default could help strengthen the euro in the long term,writes Heather Stewart in the Observer, but it “would be a costly and chaotic process.” The Irish Times also argues that no matter how a default were managed, it “would prove disastrous for Greece, damaging for the euro zone” and hurt “other debt-laden peripheral economies.”

Some also question the big creditors’ motivations. M.E. Synon writes in the Irish Daily Mail that “the Germans may want to trigger a disorderly default in Greece so that Greece falls out of the eurozone — and out of the domestic political problems of Angela Merkel.”

For Greece, pride, not just economics, is at issue. “If we cannot stay in the euro zone, if we find ourselves on Europe’s edge, we will be defeated, humiliated and alone,” writes Nikos Konstandaras in the Athens-based Ekathimerini.

 Should Greece Default? – NYTimes.com.

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Debt supercommittee might turn out to be a useful failure – The Washington Post

Posted by Michael B. Calyn in Government, Politics, Social, Society on November 24, 2011



By David A. Fahrenthold and Felicia Sonmez, Published: November 23

Will the “supercommittee” turn out to be a useful failure?

Two days after its death, this idea is the committee’s last chance to matter. There is hope that its debacle could pave the way for some deal — by clarifying the issues and suggesting new areas of common ground. Maybe the supercommittee at least gave lawmakers a clearer picture of where they disagree.

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Congress's supercommittee conceded defeat Monday in its quest to conquer a government debt that stands at a staggering $15 trillion, unable to overcome deep and enduring political divisions over taxes and spending. (Nov. 21)

Congress’s supercommittee conceded defeat Monday in its quest to conquer a government debt that stands at a staggering $15 trillion, unable to overcome deep and enduring political divisions over taxes and spending. (Nov. 21)

Next year, Congress will come right back to the same issues that defeated the supercommittee, facing a time bomb of its own making: huge, automatic budget cuts that will be triggered in January 2013 if there is no budget deal.

Thanks to the failed supercommittee, lawmakers may have a better sense of how the two sides could eventually agree.

“We did a lot of good work,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), one of the 12 members of the committee. “It’s all available now for the House and Senate to look at, as we continue on this necessary effort to deal with our fiscal crisis.”

Maybe.

But the supercommittee did not do the other things that made past Capitol Hill disappointments useful. It did not leave behind a detailed blueprint for a future deal. It did little to rally a divided public behind one solution or another.

That may make it a failure. Even among failures.

“It’s hard to see everything coming together, unless we can overcome this absolute [Republican] insistence on protecting tax breaks for very high-income individuals,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), another committee member.

The supercommittee did reveal that Republicans may be amenable to some tax increases, which seemed improbable before.

During the negotiations, Republican committee members broke with anti-tax forces in their party and offered to accept nearly $300 billion in increased tax revenues. That was achieved largely through ending deductions and closing loopholes — although Republicans also required overall tax rates to be lowered for the wealthy.

On the other side, Democrats showed they might agree to cuts in cherished federal benefit programs.

One offer from the committee’s Democrats included as much as $500 billion in cuts to Medicare and other federal health programs. It also included an offer to use a less-generous method of calculating benefit increases for Social Security.

That was a major concession for a party that had made the defense of Medicare and Social Security a key part of its campaign message.

During the supercommittee’s negotiations, both sides dismissed the other’s offer as being less than serious. But now, legislators are hoping these small steps can provide an opening for some other kind of breakthrough.

Some have called for a return to detailed debt-reducing plans produced earlier this year, including one by President Obama’s fiscal commission. It would achieve $4 trillion in budget savings by both cutting entitlement programs and boosting taxes.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the body’s second-ranking Democrat, also suggested a revival of informal bargaining between the two parties.

“I think we ought to say after February first of next year, any 12 senators, six of either party, who produce a plan that can reduce this deficit by at least as much as the supercommittee was charged to do ought to be able to bring it to the floor for a vote,” Durbin said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.Durbin also is trying to revive an effort by a “Gang of Six” senators to craft a budget-
cutting plan.

The supercommittee did manage to simplify the two parties’ fight over taxes. It is now chiefly about taxes on the wealthy — a narrower issue than taxes on everybody, and perhaps easier to solve.

Republicans insisted that, to protect a fragile economy, Bush-era tax cuts needed be extended for everyone.

Democrats wanted the tax cuts to be terminated for the very rich, who they say have a moral and fiscal responsibility to contribute more.

On that issue, the supercommittee broke down.

“The parties are much closer on tax policy than it would appear from the rhetoric,” said Bob Bixby of the nonpartisan Concord Coalition. “They’re fighting about that top echelon.”

The idea of failure as progress is a long-standing part of congressional lore. Capitol Hill mythology holds that “everything dies three times before it lives” and that seven years elapse between the arrival of a good idea and its passage into law.

In the past, several significant proposals incurred many deaths as doomed bills paved the way for historic successes. The first anti-lynching bills in the 1920s paved the way for landmark civil rights laws in the 1960s. The failed effort to overhaul health care in the 1990s informed the successful one under President Obama.

Skeptics say that based on the completeness and public nature of it failure, the supercommittee is not one of those useful failures.

“I’d love to see a silver lining here, and I’m trying as hard as I can. But I don’t see it,” saidJared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who is a former Obama administration adviser. “It seems like they started with intractably hardened positions . . . on taxes. And they never really budged.”

 Debt supercommittee might turn out to be a useful failure – The Washington Post.

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