So, the supercommittee is ready to implode, setting up a situation where so-called automatic cuts are to take effect.

Yet, you’ve got folks like McCain and Graham ready to introduce legislation that would restore the military cuts. The debt reduction package was supposed to impose across the board cuts, including to the military if the supercommittee fails to take action exceeding the $1+ trillion in cuts in the automatic plan.

Once again, we’ve got a high profile way that Congress has completely abdicated on fiscal responsibility - they can simply attempt to legislate away whatever fiscal responsibility package previously enacted.

So much for austerity when you start carving out exemption after exemption from the very cuts that you previously agreed upon. And now everyone will play politics with different introduced legislation that exempts this or that program from the mandatory cuts (and some of those cuts are likely to be restored down the road) but even if they aren’t restored, they’re pandering to their pet audiences.

It’s so maddening and infuriating to see that no one in DC - but especially the GOP - gets fiscal responsibility 101.

The GOP is wholly in the thrall of Norquist, and no one seems capable of standing up to him to say that some tax hikes are critical to restoring fiscal responsibility. But from a purely political tactic, the temporary cuts were a tremendous boost to the GOP - they put any consideration of a restoration of the former rates as a hike and it’s their wedge to force still lower spending on programs they deem unfit for federal funding, even though their utility is well known or essential.