Back in August, I predicted on Wisconsin Public Radio that the “supercommittee” charged with creating a deal to reduce the federal budget deficit and debt would fail to do so.

On Thursday, this blog passed on the Washington Post report that “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” by its deadline Wednesday.

Then, on Sunday, came the expected reports that the two chairs of the supercommittee will issue a joint statement confirming what the White House has been quietly bracing for for a few days. No spending cuts, no tax reform, and no entitlement reform.

Jim Pethokoukis observes:

It’s like the 1990s never happened and the 1970s never stopped happening for the Washington Obamacrats. The U.S. economy faces two screamingly obvious problems: historically slow growth and historically high government spending leading to massive budget deficits. In this way, American is already frighteningly like Greece and Italy.

Yet Democrats used the SuperCommittee to push a trillion-dollar tax hike and block fundamental entitlement reform. As one GOP aide told Politico, “If they were willing to go a little further on entitlements, we’d see what we can do on revenues. That was the way it would have to work. What we found was, they needed a trillion-plus in revenues, and weren’t willing to do anywhere near that on entitlements.”

It’s been an underappreciated fact just how far left Democrats have moved on taxes in recent years. But it should now be blindingly clear. The SuperCommittee Democrats are perfectly happy to let the top tax rate soar to nearly 45 percent in 2013 (including both income taxes and Medicare taxes) on small business and entrepreneurs and investors. This, even though the exploding eurozone debt crisis threatens to push the U.S. economy from sputter speed to stall. And even if financial contagion doesn’t wash up on our shores, few economists see growth fast enough to substantially reduce unemployment and boost incomes any year soon.

Yet Democrats seem unconcerned or even eager for taxes to rise, thanks in part to the work of liberal economists advocating taxes rates as high as 80 percent. It will also take dramatically higher tax revenue to fund what Democrats argue is an unavoidable surge in government spending due to a) the aging of the population and — as they see it — b) trillions in needed public “investment” catch-up after years of Republican stinginess.

But it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Without market-based entitlement reform — which even many centrists endorse — government health spending will indeed continue to soar.

Rich Galen doesn’t merely place blame on Democrats:

I believe that the need to appoint a Super Committee in the first place was a failure of governance on the part of both parties, in both Chambers and, just to complete the rogues’ gallery, on the part of the President of the United States….

The Super Committee is the latest in a long line of looking for ways not to do what we pay them to do. Automatic triggers are a favorite. I believe the Congress gets an automatic raise every year unless they vote to forego it. Don’t vote? The raise is automatic. …

I feel the same way about a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We PAY the Members of the House and Senate to make good spending and taxing decisions. They have it within their current power to pass a balanced budget each year.

A BBA would just be another opportunity for Members to go home, shrug their shoulders, and tell their constituents they really, really wanted to fight for money to build a new city hall, but “What could I do? The Balanced Budget Amendment took it out of my hands.”

The inability of the U.S. Congress to make even the most simple decisions for fear they will be taken to task by their constituents, is making me re-examine my position on term limits.

I would love to see a serious study of state legislatures which have term-limit laws to see if the decisions made by the members are any better than their peers in states where there are no limits.

The supercommittee certainly was a weasel move and, as I wrote Thursday, an unserious attempt at deficit and debt reduction given the fact that neither U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R–Janesville) nor U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R–Wisconsin) were on it. But expecting politicians to act against what they think are their best reelection interests is excessively idealistic. And the claim that a balanced budget amendment would prevent politicians from, or allowing them to escape, doing their jobs misses the entire point of most of the U.S. Constitution, which is an entire document of protections for citizens from the government. The Constitution may need to be expanded to protect us Americans from the bad spending and taxing decisions Congress makes.

(As for Galen’s last point, I don’t think term-limit laws make any difference as long as gerrymandering exists; term limit laws merely result in the replacement of a politician with another from that district’s dominant party. The only way better decisions are made is if voters make the correct choices, as the 2008 and 2010 Wisconsin legislative elections demonstrate.)

So another political game commences. When does the federal government run out of money again?

Jonah Goldberg (headline with apologies to Jimmy Buffett):

Congratulations, average American! It’s your turn to be blamed for President Obama’s — and America’s — problems. …

Last week at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Obama explained that, “We’ve been a little bit lazy over the last couple of decades. We’ve kind of taken for granted — ‘Well, people would want to come here’ — and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new businesses into America.” …

In September, the president reflected in an interview that America is “a great, great country that has gotten a little soft, and we didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades.”

Shortly after that, he told rich donors at a fundraiser that “we have lost our ambition, our imagination and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam.”

So, Obama thinks Americans lack ambition and are soft, but don’t you dare suggest that he also thinks they’re lazy.

The point of all this is pretty obvious. Obama has a long-standing habit of seeing failure to support his agenda as a failure of character. The Democratic voters of western Pennsylvania refused to vote for him, he explained, because they were “bitter.” He told black Democrats lacking sufficient enthusiasm for his re-election that they needed to “Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying.” …

What’s so pathetic here … is that Obama’s objections are so baseless. Americans remain the most productive workers in the world. As Obama himself notes, we attract more foreign investment than any other country.

Meanwhile, it’s Obama and his allies in Congress who’ve been at the forefront of the effort to make America less competitive. Obama delayed free trade deals for years, until he could lard them up with Big Labor giveaways. He’s thrown roadblocks in front a multibillion-dollar U.S.-Canada pipeline project, which many ambitious and imaginative people see as something like this generation’s Hoover Dam or Golden Gate Bridge. He did postpone those new job-killing smog regulations his EPA administrator wants, but he’s also let everyone — including foreign investors — know that he’ll put them back on the agenda if he’s re-elected.

In 2008, Obama said Bush’s deficit of $9 trillion was “unpatriotic.” Now he questions the patriotism of those who think the Obama deficit of $15 trillion argues against spending even more money we don’t have. And of course, there’s that giant unfunded disaster known as ObamaCare, which Nancy Pelosi claimed was a “jobs bill” because it would lead to “an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance.”

But, yes, by all means, let’s blame our lack of competitiveness on the American people.

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.