I am shocked — shocked! — to read this from the Washington Post:

White House officials are quietly bracing for “supercommittee” failure, with advisers privately saying they are pessimistic that the 12-member Congressional panel will find a way to cut $1.2 trillion from the deficit as required. …

[President] Obama has stopped short of issuing a blanket veto threat if the committee tries to undo the severe cuts that would take effect in 2013 if an agreement is not reached. Obama has simply said that Congress “must not shirk its responsibilities” and, in a news conference from Hawaii, said he would not comment on the potential for a veto. …

With time running out — the deadline is Nov. 23 — it is unclear whether the lawmakers can strike a bargain, and, if they do, whether that deal will pass Congress by the next deadline, Dec. 23. In a potential preview of how he could respond to anything short of a compromise, Obama has been railing against Congress for its partisan gridlock. At a campaign event in Hawaii on Monday, he made the pitch that “change” takes more than a single presidential term to achieve.

That’s as surprising as reading that the U.S. Postal Service lost billions of dollars last fiscal year.

I’m not surprised that the supercommittee, which is not a serious deficit-reduction effort since neither U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R–Janesville) nor Sen. Ron Johnson (R–Wisconsin) is on it, is failing. I predicted as much on Wisconsin Public Radio back in August. To not even be able to maintain the same debt-to-Gross Domestic Product ratio as now — which would require $4 trillion, not $1.2 trillion, of cuts — shows that the supercommittee was not even a worthwhile effort as political cover.

And of course politics gets in the way, as the Weekly Standard’s Matthew Continetti points out:

I’m pessimistic that the supercommittee will reach any deal. There is no political or economic incentive for a grand bargain. Politically, Democrats want to campaign by attacking Republicans as guardians of the rich, while Republicans want to campaign by attacking Democrats as profligate spenders. Actual compromise that reduces debt while not raising tax rates would undermine these lines of attack. Economically, the crisis in Europe has convinced me that governments only limit themselves when forced to do so by the bond markets. That was the case with Canada in the 1990s, and it is the case with Greece and Italy today. For Americans voluntarily to restrain their government, and thus restrain themselves, would be nothing less than extraordinary.

Continetti’s right, but so is Brian S. Wesbury of FirstTrust Advisors:

According to government estimates, if spending is cut by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years, government spending will fall from a peak of about 25% of GDP to 22%.  This is a positive (but somewhat minor) movement in the correct direction.  Cutting spending is the most important thing Congress can do to boost economic growth, create jobs and lift stock markets to new highs.

We know this is not what our college professors teach us.  We know this is not what conventional wisdom believes.  But, history shows the truth.  …

Federal spending increased from 18% of GDP in 1965 to 23% in 1982.  During that time, stock prices went nowhere, P-E ratios fell, unemployment rose and the economy suffered.  From 1982 to 2000, government spending was cut back to 18.5% of GDP.  Stocks soared, unemployment plummeted and the economy boomed.  Since 2000, as government spending shot up again, the economy has suffered, unemployment has climbed and stocks have flat-lined again.

The bigger the government is the smaller the private sector is and the smaller the private sector is the fewer jobs an economy creates.  Cutting spending should be the focus of government policy.

As it happens, this afternoon’s supercommittee hearing (superhearing?) will be at the same time that the Tea Party Debt Commission meets. The TPDC, a project of FreedomWorks, has an online debt-reduction calculator in which participants can choose one of two options in a series of choices (with savings estimated by FreedomWorks) to reduce the federal deficit and debt.

The first time I tried the calculator, I chose:

• Cut all discretionary spending to 2008 pre-stimulus levels, saving $20 billion in the first year and $748 billion over 10 years.
• Convert Medicaid to a state block grant program, saving $750 billion over 10 years.
• Use more accurate measures of inflation for all government programs, saving $1 billion in the first year and $96 billion over 10 years.
• Break up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saving $30 billion the first year and $300 billion over 10 years.
• Eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development, saving $53 billion the first year and $530 billion over 10 years.
• Reduce unused or underutilized federal building space by 25 percent, saving $56.75 billion the first year and $567.5 billion over 10 years.
• Reduce the federal workforce to 2008 levels, saving $1 billion the first year and $35 billion over 10 years.
• Eliminate the Department of Education, saving $95 billion the first year and $950 billion over 10 years.

Add all that up, and in the space of maybe three minutes I came up with $224 billion in first-year savings and $3.649 trillion in 10-year savings. So I tried it again:

• End the Troubled Asset Relief Program, saving $4 billion the first year and $18 billion over 10 years.
• Reduce Social Security benefits for those with high incomes, saving $6 billion the first year and $60 billion over 10 years.
• Reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal to “align with modern needs and threats,” saving $56.75 billion the first year and $567.5 billion over 10 years.
• Privatize Amtrak and end federal rail subsidies, saving $3.1 billion the first year and $31 billion over 10 years.
• Convert the federal food stamp program into a capped block grant to the states, saving $45 billion the first year and $350 billion over 10 years.
• Recalibrate Medicare reimbursement rates in high-cost regions of the country, saving $11.7 billion the first year and $117 billion over 10 years.
• Eliminate the Department of Energy and transfer nuclear research to the Defense Department, saving $21 billion the first year and $210 billion over 10 years.
• End “paid volunteerism” by ending the AmeriCorps program, saving $1 billion the first year and $10 billion over 10 years.

That batch of cuts saves $148.55 billion the first year and $1.3635 trillion over 10 years. Let’s take another shot:

• Eliminate “certain federal job training programs,” saving $4.3 billion the first year and $43 billion over 10 years.
• Reduce Medicare subsidies to “actual cost of hospitals’ graduate medical education,” saving $20.5 billion the first year and $205 billion over 10 years.
• Cut the federal employee travel budget to $4 billion, half of fiscal year 2000 spending, saving $10 billion the first year and $100 billion over 10 years.
• Enact a federal statute reforming state medical malpractice laws, saving $2 billion the first year and $54 billion over 10 years.
• Reduce federal subsidies for crop insurance from 60 percent to 50 percent, saving $400 million the first year and $12 billion over 10 years.
• End orders for “obsolete and unnecessary military parts and supplies,” saving $35.3 billion the first year and $353 billion over 10 years.
• Repeal ObamaCare, saving $9 billion the first year and $1.8 trillion over 10 years.
• Cancel the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, saving $22.5 billion the first year and $225 billion over 10 years.

That batch of cuts saves $104 billion the first year and $2.792 trillion over 10 years. One more time:

• Eliminate the U.S. Small Business Administration, saving $1.4 billion the first year and $14 billion over 10 years.
• Cancel V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft purchases, saving $6 billion the first year and $60 billion over 10 years.
• Gradually increase the retirement age to 70, saving $56 billion over 10 years.
• Privatize air traffic control, saving $3.8 billion the first year and $38 billion over 10 years.
• Reduce and limit the growth of federal payments to states for cash welfare programs, saving $1 billion the first year and $14 billion over 10 years.
• End urban mass transit grants, saving $5.2 billion the first year and $52 billion over 10 years.
• Eliminate Department of Commerce grants for ethanol and “unproven energy technology subsidies,” saving $17 billion the first year and $170 billion over 10 years.

That group saves $34.4 billion the first year and $404 billion over 10 years.

Add up all four and these cuts would save $510.55 billion the first year and more than $8.2 trillion over a decade. My choices of cuts equal the supercommittee’s $1.2 trillion goal plus Obama’s September call for $3 trillion in cuts plus Obama’s deficit-reduction commission’s call for $4 trillion in cuts (the amount needed to keep the same debt-to-GDP ratio as earlier this year), without raising taxes by even $1.

Many of these cuts would obviously be controversial, and doubtless all of the spending listed here has its own constituent and special-interest groups. National security is not served by spending money on obsolete equipment, weapons not needed in the post-Cold War world, or cool stuff (such as the Osprey, which I saw at an EAA AirVenture) whose price tag exceeds its value. You cannot reduce the deficit and debt without dealing with entitlements, which is why I made the Social Security and Medicare choices. If the country survived for 200 years without federal education and energy departments, it can survive today without them.

Maybe I should run for the Senate against U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D–Madison). Or maybe the Republicans should take this entire list, introduce it as their deficit-reduction proposal and dare Democrats to vote against it and Obama to veto it. Then voters will know that Republicans are serious about deficit and debt reduction (which has not always been the case) and Democrats are not.