Boehner Looks To Obama To Help Curb Sequester

Following the collapse of super committee negotiations, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is looking to the Commander-in-Chief to help curb automatic cuts in military spending. 

Though President Obama has already threatened to veto any bill that aims to soften the impact the nation’s defense budget, Boehner continued Thursday to push for curbed sequestration, citing repeated warnings from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta over the detrimental effects cuts would have on the Pentagon. 

“I really believe the president has some responsibilities here as well,” Boehner told reporters. “He is the Commander-in-Chief, he knows what those cuts will mean to the military.”

Boehner, who agreed to the across-the-board cuts when negotiating with Obama on increasing the debt ceiling, is facing growing pressure from his own conference to curb defense cuts. 

“There are a lot of members who are concerned about the defense cuts,” he said. “I understand the concern, but the president is the Commander-in-Chief… I believe there’s a role he plays in this process as well.”

Supercommittee Member Blames Failure On 2012 Politics

By Mike Hothi

Supercommittee member Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) Tuesday blamed the bipartisan panel’s recent failure on “forces pulling the Democrats away from an agreement.”

“We have a Presidential campaign that is now premised on the idea that the President is running against a do-nothing Congress,” Toomey said during an appearance at the Heritage Foundation.

Toomey said that he believes success in the Super Committee would have made the President’s message meaningless.

“If the select committee had come to a great bipartisan agreement that could pass both houses and get signed into law, it would rather muddle the message that the President is trying to run on,” Toomey said.

The Super Committee was tasked with finding $1.2 trillion in savings to avoid automatic sequestration, a task the 12 person panel failed to accomplish.

Toomey also blamed the far left wing of the Democratic party for meddling in the committee’s negotiations. He stated that while there were some Democrats that tried to reach an agreement, many in the committee “found it impossible to break from the left wing of their own caucus.”

Going forward, Toomey said he believes that in order for true reform to be undertaken, the U.S. must “await another election cycle for further clarity and guidance from the voters.”

Supercommittee Member Moving Forward With Corporate Tax Reform

By Andrea Salazar

Fresh off the Congressional Supercommittee’s failure to strike a deal to reduce government spending by $1.2 trillion over the next decade, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) is offering a plan to lower the corporate tax rate.

During an appearance Monday at the American Enterprise Institute, Portman said his plan would lower the corporate tax rate to 25 percent from its current 35 percent and create a territorial tax system that would only tax income made in the United States.

Though disappointed with the supercommittee’s inability to strike a deal to reduce the deficit, Portman, a member of the bipartisan panel, said the bright side was the influx of ideas that came out of the negotiations.

“This supercommittee process was frustrating … but we did achieve some results,” Portman said. “One was coming together as Republicans and Democrats alike and putting together at least a framework for dealing with this issue of corporate taxes. So I’m hopeful that one of the products of the committee is that Congress will now have the ability to move forward on this.”

The senator said he hopes to get bipartisan support for his proposal and said he had seen interest from both sides of the aisle during super committee negotiations, including from Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). He will introduce the bill early next year.

Poll: Americans Say Dems, GOP Equally At Fault In Super Committee Bust

Most Americans are joining the blame game over the recent “super” failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, only they’re pointing at both parties rather than isolating one. 

According to a new Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans say both Democratic and Republican members of the committee share the responsibility for its failure at trimming at least $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit over the next ten years. 

However, those surveyed who pointed to one party over the other believe that Republicans are more at fault for the super committee’s inability to reach an agreement than their Democratic counterparts, 24 to 15 percent, respectively. 

Figures show that by a 2 to 1 margin, Americans wanted the bipartisan, bicameral group to compromise their views on taxes and entitlement reform more than had already been offered. 

Not all Americans wanted their party’s members to reach further across the aisle as a means to reach a deal. According to the poll, Republicans are divided in their views of whether the super committee should have compromised more or was right to let negotiations falter. Just 44 percent of Republicans surveyed said more should have been done while 42 percent believe committee members were right to refuse a deal that did not reflect their views. 

Results from the poll are based on phone interviews conducted on Nov. 21, 2011. Just over 1,000 adults were surveyed from all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

Conservatives Applaud Debt Panel Republicans For Opposing Tax Hikes

By Mike Hothi

Conservative activists applauded Republicans on the congressional ‘super committee’ today for opposing Democratic attempts to raise taxes.

The group held a press conference Tuesday morning to praise the six GOP lawmkers on the debt panel for not caving in to “disastrous tax increases.”

“Raising taxes is absolutely unacceptable,” stated Brent Bozell, Chairman of ForAmerica. “The media and the White House want you to believe the Super Committee failed, but in a very real way that is untrue.”

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council went as far as to say that the Committee succeeded.

“It succeeded in showing Americans the vast ideological divide that stands between the two main political parties in this town” he said. “There is the party that believes we can sustain spending levels that have doubled in the last decade.”

Talks between members on the committee broke down over the weekend after both sides rejected a twin of proposals. Republicans, led by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) proposed generating $300 billion in new revenues mainly through eliminating tax loopholes and deductions. In return, the GOP asked Democrats to go further on cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Democrats countered by saying they would agree to the steeper entitlement cuts if Republicans would support $1 trillion in new revenues over the next decade.

When Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the two leaders on the panel, realized yesterday that they had reached an insurmountable impasse, they released a joint statement officially announcing the committee’s failure.

Following the joint statement, Senate Foregin Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) blamed anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist for standing in the way of an agreement. Kerry, a key Democratic member of the committee, called Norquist’s famous anti-tax pledge signed by most of the current Republicans in Congress the “one hang-up” that prevented a deal from being reached.

Norquist responded by accusing Kerry and other Democrats of signing “secret” pledges to unions and progressive special interest groups.

Conservatives who spoke at today’s presser told reporters that they would’ve revolted had Republicans agreed to large tax hikes. They said that they will continue to lean on GOP lawmakers to hold the line.

“If Republicans ultimately cave to liberal Democrats and support tax increases, the results in 2012 will be devastating,” said Bozell.

Geoff Holtzman contributed to this report.