Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) says the right response to the failure of the Super Committee is to let a thousand ad hoc Super Committees bloom.
When the panel failed, it lost all of its power, which was in essence the power to force Congress to hold up-or-down votes on their recommendations — no amendments, no filibuster.
Lieberman wants to extend these same powers to any sufficiently large bipartisan “gang” in the House or Senate, if they can come up with at least $1.5 trillion in deficit reducing measures over the course of three months.
“The Budget Control Act said that if the Super Committee reached an agreement it would come to congress and for good reasons it would be considered on an expedited basis, it would not be subject to a filibuster, it wouldn’t even be subject to amendments — it would be an up or down vote,” Lieberman told reporters at a breakfast round table hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “The proposal I’m introducing today would extend that process for 90 days into next year…but I’ve done it a little differently since the Super Committee is gone. I’ve said that if any six members of one caucus, six members of the other caucus in the Senate; [or] 15 in the [both caucuses] in the House…submit legislation that is qualified under the bill, which means that it would achieve at least $1.5 trillion of additional debt reduction over the next 10 years, and of course it’s bipartisan, then it would have the benefit of those expedited procedures.”
The bill would in essence provide a window — 90 days from the day it took effect — for any bipartisan working group on the Hill to build support and reach consensus on a legislation to cut the deficit. Building support has been tricky, though, and so far Lieberman has only four co-sponsors, all Republicans.
Lieberman has famously used his filibuster powers in the Senate to bite his thumb at the progressives who booted him from the Democratic party — but he says those powers shouldn’t apply to bipartisan fiscal legislation.
“I don’t want it to be killed by a filibuster,” he said. “And right now I worry that’s the case. And therefore I think this is an unusual moment of national crisis and we ought to not let it die, a good bipartisan proposal for cutting the debt die, because of the filibuster.”
