The Super Committee's demand to work in secret has apparently been successful, as no leaks as to what their $1.5 trillion reduction plan may include have been heard.
This Friday, House and Senate committees must submit recommendations to the committee by this date. Nov. 23 is the deadline for the committee to vote on a plan with $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction, Dec. 2 the deadline for the committee to submit report and legislative language to the president and Congress, and Dec. 23 the deadline for both houses to vote on the committee bill.
While respecting their secrecy as a way to get work done, a little reported item causes some concern, in light of Senator's Murray statement on the group’s ground rules in the super committee’s first public session, where she made it clear that although the lawmakers would strive for as much transparency as possible, they reserved the right to discuss matters privately, like any other Congressional panel.
“I believe the American people deserve to have full access to committee business the way they do with every committee here in Congress, and I believe these rules will allow us to do exactly that,” Murray said in the Sept. 8 session. “We looked at how House and Senate committees operate, and we worked together to make sure this committee met publicly but also had the ability to meet just among Members to discuss important issues.”
I respect all Senator Murray has done for veterans, but here's the rub and why it looks doubtful that their will be any real cuts in defense spending.
October 5, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/world/152611/supercommittee_co-chair_patty_murray_accepts_award_from_defense_industry_as_she_mulls_cuts_to_pentagon_budget?du When Senator John Kyl, a Republican member of the “supercommittee” charged with reducing the federal deficits by $1.5 trillion over the next decade, threatened to walk out on the panel if cuts to the defense budget were open for discussion, it was big news. Far less attention, almost none, in fact, has been paid to Democratic Senator Patty Murray, a co-chair of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. But a recent award that the senator from
Washington received may say more about the likelihood of cuts to the defense budget than the Arizona Republican’s tough talk. So, perhaps, does Murray's refusal to discuss it.
Last month, Patty Murray was awarded a bronze statuette featuring a little boy with a big smile on his face, running while holding a toy airplane aloft. Presented by the Aerospace Industries Association, a coalition of more than 300 defense and aerospace firms, the “Wings of Liberty Award” was given to Murray “in recognition of her longtime support of the aerospace and defense industry,” reads the organization’s press release. According to Jim Albaugh, the executive vice president of America’s second largest defense contractor, Boeing, and the chairman of AIA’s Board of Governors, “Senator Murray knows the value of the aerospace and defense industry.”
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When asked if the Aerospace Industries Association was engaged in any special lobbying efforts geared toward the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, Alexis Allen, a spokesperson for the trade group told AlterNet by email: “We are providing information to everyone on the hill, including members of the supercommittee, about the impact of the budget act on the industrial base.
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Murray has never issued a press release regarding her industry honor. No reference of her acceptance of the prize has appeared on her website. Nor did the national press offer any coverage of the supercommittee co-chair receiving an award from an industry at the same moment she is one of 12 legislators deciding the economic fate of that sector for the next decade.
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