Charitable Deduction | Federal
Nov 21, 2011
WASHINGTON UPDATE (11.21.11): Super Committee Update
Major news outlets are reporting that the Super Committee will fail to produce a deal. That said, “breaking up before making up” is expected in this town. So even though it appears nothing will be accomplished, it is still possible that House and Senate leadership could intervene. And that is what it would take to reach a deal, according to Super Committee staff we heard from this morning.
Read this Washington Post article for a detailed summary of the deadlocked Committee, but here are a few highlights:
- The real deadline is midnight tonight (Monday, November 21) as the Congressional Budget Office will need about 48 hours to “score” any proposal.
- Both sides are now wrangling to come out ahead in the blame game, as evidenced by several Committee members hitting the Sunday news shows in an effort to contain the fallout. Committee co-chair Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) took a minor stab at Committee Democrats on Fox Sunday saying, “I’m not saying it’s anybody’s fault, [but] we’ve got people with very different views frankly of what it takes to produce jobs and what it takes to produce economic growth.”
- The Committee’s inaction forces new urgency for Congressional action on funding programs and extending certain tax provisions before the end of the year. Some of these issues include extending unemployment insurance, fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax, reforming the reimbursement formula for physicians who treat Medicare patients (a.k.a. the “doc fix”) and maintaining a payroll tax break first enacted in 2009.
We will be sure to keep you informed as more details come out before Thanksgiving.