(Image Source: KP Tripathi)  

BY VICTORIA CRAIG 

You're watching multisource video political news analysis from Newsy. 

Will they or won’t they? That’s the big question facing the deficit-reduction super committee in Washington. Erskine Bowles, a former co-chair of the president’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility, testified before the committee this week and had this stern warning.

“I have great respect for each of you individually. But collectively, I’m worried you’re going to fail. Fail the country.”

And Bowles’ warning might be coming at a good time. Thursday, Republican and Democratic members of the super committee sent separate proposals to the Congressional Budget Office for scoring. As Politico suggests, that could be a sign both sides may not be cooperating as they should.

“The fact that both sides had to send different proposals to the CBO — at a time when the lawmakers hoped they could get behind one plan — could show that the two sides remain far apart at a crucial stage of the negotiations.”

It's no surprise Republicans and Democrats disagree -- it comes down to a fundamental difference: Republicans refuse to allow any tax increases for more revenue and Democrats are firmly against cutting entitlement programs without raising revenue. Making matters worse, as the New York Times reports, a group of 33 Republicans sent a letter to the super committee insisting on no new taxes.

“In an exchange of proposals last week, Republicans ... offered a package of spending cuts and new revenues. A Republican aide said on Thursday: ‘The letter is a warning... The $600 billion tax hike floated last week is a nonstarter.’ Democrats said the letter was a serious setback...”

Meantime the clock’s ticking on the committee’s November 23rd deadline. An editor for the Wall Street Journal tells CNBC he doesn’t have much faith the super committee will reach a deal in time.

“I think there’s still a 50/50 chance this whole thing blows up, Larry. The sides are still really far apart and the clock is ticking and if they don’t have an agreement by the end of next week, it may be too late.”

But Republican Senator Pat Toomey, a member of the super committee, tells Fox News he still has faith.

“It’s really important that we begin to change the course, that we recognize that we need to fix what’s broken, which is out of control spending. We ought to reform the tax code -- I’ve been a big advocate for reforming the individual tax code so we’ll have more growth, more jobs, more people on payrolls paying taxes, that’s the kind of revenue we need to grow and we should grow and we’ve got that within reach as well. So I think, I hope we’ll accomplish that.”

If the super committee fails to reach an agreement by its late November deadline, a series of automatic cuts will kick in in 2013 -- $600 billion in defense cuts and $600 billion in cuts to entitlement programs. But if that happens some analysts fear the next Congress will repeal those automatic cuts and the country will be back at square one.