Gregg: Supercommittee Has ‘Extraordinary’ Opportunity

Many politicos in Washington have expressed skepticism that the bipartisan supercommittee charged with proposing $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years can accomplish much. Former Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., disagrees.

 

“The opportunity this supercommittee has to fundamentally improve our nation’s desperate fiscal situation is extraordinary,” he writes in The Hill. “Among the powers the supercommittee has been given is the ability to put forward legislative proposals that need only a majority vote to pass and cannot be amended. That gives Congress the exceptional power of actually being able to get something done.”

 

The supercommittee should go way beyond the $1.5 trillion figure, Gregg says. It should set a target for government spending at about 20 percent of GDP. Then it should recommend entitlement and tax reform.