Oh, this is just super!

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Excuse me if my cynicism is showing.

The 12 politicians appointed to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction – the bipartisan “super committee” charged with finding $1.5 trillion in debt savings over the next decade – received nearly $64.5 million from special interests groups in the last decade, with legal firms donating about $31.5 million and Wall Street firms (including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase) donating about $11.2 million.

Ever heard of Club for Growth? This conservative “free market” group (read: staunchly opposed to tax increases) donated more money than any other organization, contributing a combined $990,066 to the 12 committee members. The vast majority of that money went to its former president, Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA).

And yet surely it’s possible that these fine, noble, unsullied men and women – mostly men – will opt to put campaign contributions aside, negotiate in good faith and vote with the best interests of the people and economy of the United States in mind.

The committee has until November 23 to produce a debt reduction plan or else as much as $1.2 trillion in across-the-board cuts (evenly divided between defense and non-defense spending) will automatically kick in. The full Congress has to vote on the committee’s plan by December 23.

CNN provided snapshots of each committee member:

• Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), co-chair, is chair of the House Republican Conference who served on the president’s debt commission but voted against the commission’s plan because he opposes any and all tax increases.

• Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), co-chair, chairs the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and serves on the Budget and Appropriations Committees. The Republican National Committee has already strongly objected to her appointment on the grounds that she’s too political.

• Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MA), the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, played a key role in the debt talks led by Vice President Joe Biden earlier this year.

• Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Senator Mitch McConnell’s second-in-command, is a pro-military member of the Finance Committee and a staunch opponent of tax increases. He walked out of Biden’s debt negotiations earlier this year.

• Senator John Kerry (D-MA), the failed presidential candidate, is an expert on foreign policy and national security. He’s a member of the Finance Committee and has been in the Senate for almost three decades.

• Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) was elected to the Senate just last year. The former president of Club for Growth sits on the Senate Budget and Banking Committees and ended up voting against the debt ceiling bill that created the super committee.

• Senator Max Baucus (D-MO) is chair of the Senate Finance Committee. He served on the president’s debt commission but voted against the final plan because he thought it cut too deeply into farm subsidies and he didn’t like the changes it would have made to entitlement programs.

• Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) is a Senate novice, a member of the Budget Committee and a former White House budget director in the Bush administration.

• Representative Xavier Becerra (D-CA) is a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee who served on the president’s debt commission but opposed the final plan because it cut too deeply into discretionary spending and didn’t raise enough revenue.

• Representative James Clyburn (D-SC) is the third-ranking Democrat in the House, a veteran of the Appropriations Committee, and one of Nancy Pelosi’s BFFs.

• Representative Dave Camp (R-MI) chairs the House Ways and Means Committee and served on Obama's debt commission but opposed the commission’s plan because it hiked taxes and he thought it failed to address rising health care costs. Camp has collected $134,000, largely from insurance and health care-connected groups – more than anyone else in Congress, including party leaders.

• Representative Fred Upton (R-MI) chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee and received $92,000 from special interests in the span of a few weeks last month, ranking fourth among all politicians.

The six Republicans have all signed a pledge by Americans for Tax Reform to vote against any tax increases.

This is too bad. A new state poll released yesterday by Lansing-based EPIC-MRA found that two-thirds of those surveyed want the super committee to agree on a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.

Yeah, that’s going to happen. And newfound bipartisanship and productivity will permeate throughout Washington, butterflies will flutter, rainbows will glisten, angels will sing, and politicians of all stripes will march hand-in-hand down Pennsylvania Avenue with smiles on their faces and compromise in their hearts.

Politicians do have hearts, right?






Sources: Raw Story, CNN, Washington Times, Associated Press.