A coalition of about 150 top business groups is urging the Super Committee on Capitol Hill to go big on a deficit deal, to put cuts and major tax reform on the table for bigger savings that are in the panel’s mandate. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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While the letter organized by the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and the National Association of Manufacturers does not cite a specific dollar figure, a senior official involved in the effort told Fox News the leaders would like the panel to shoot for a deal in excess of $4 trillion in deficit reduction.
President Obama recently unveiled a deficit reduction package in the range of $3 trillion to $4 trillion, which included about $1.5 trillion in tax increases. Republicans have shown little or no support for Obama’s plan and top aides in both parties privately say they do not currently expect that a deal of that size can be ironed out.
But the business groups have a significant amount of clout on Capitol Hill and, in the letter dated Thursday, they urged the 12 members of the panel to “go beyond the legislative mandate of the Balanced Budget Control Act of 2011 to achieve savings of $1.2 to $1.5 trillion to ensure that we stabilize our nation’s debt and put the debt’s share of the economy on a downward path. This is essential for long-term economic growth in our nation.”
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), a Democrat who serves on the Super Committee, told Fox News he’s still hopeful that a deal of this magnitude can get done but is skeptical all sides can come together.
“I’ve always been in the camp where I hope we can go big, get some sort of an overarching agreement that tackles a lot of these issues,” said Van Hollen, who also serves as the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
But, Van Hollen added, “I don’t know if we’ll be able to get there or not. Only time will tell. I think there is a seriousness of purpose of getting everyone to work very hard in a very short period of time to get the job done.”
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) noted there is a huge challenge looming over the Super Committee, which has to get both chambers of Congress to reach a final deal right before Christmas, based on the law that created the panel during this summer’s debt ceiling negotiations.
If the panel fails to reach a bipartisan agreement, the law mandates there will be a process known as “sequestration” in which painful cuts to the Pentagon as well as entitlement programs like Medicare will kick in to reach the $1.2 trillion target.
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