Image source: The Washington Post

BY ZACH TOOMBS

Less than two weeks from its Nov. 23 deadline to find at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction measures, the congressional super committee has shown few signs of progress. But its Republican co-chairman, Representative Jeb Hensarling, tells CNN the committee is doing all it can.

“Even though time continues to run off the clock, we are not giving up hope on reaching an agreement with the Democrats until the stroke of midnight on the 23rd.”

In an interview with CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, Hensarling said tax increases, usually poison to the GOP would be “a reality” of any deal with super committee Democrats.

This was evidenced when Republicans offered a proposal that would eliminate tax breaks and enact spending cuts, but CNN reports Democrats rejected it.

“Pat Toomey, who’s a conservative Republican, put out a tax plan this week that sort of was against orthodoxy in that it would raise some tax revenue. It didn’t increase the tax, per se. It would reduce tax breaks that would raise more tax revenue. Democrats rejected it out of hand. They countered with another proposal that raised way more revenue. Republicans didn’t like that.”

FOX News reports the super committee’s failure to reach a deal by Nov. 23 would trigger deep cuts in defense and domestic spending, as agreed upon after the summer’s debt ceiling debate.

“Nov. 23 is the super committee’s deadline to make a deal, and if they don’t then the same law that brought together these six Democrats and six Republicans in Congress will trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts, including $600 billion to the Pentagon.”

Media reaction to the super committee’s progress -- or lack thereof -- has varied. A columnist for Reason.com says:

“... these are hardly dramatic cuts. Some Democrats have cried foul about the potential Medicare cuts, but they’re capped at 2 percent, which would barely make a dent in the program’s rapidly growing spending... while defense spending (would be returned) back to levels not seen since the dark days of...2007.”

But a columnist for The Baltimore Sun has concerns about military spending cuts that could be triggered by the super committee’s indecision, writing:

“U.S. military hardware is aging and becoming less effective — sons are manning fighters flown by fathers, and the typical Air Force bomber is 34 years old... Cyber warfare and the problem of China, which is building a navy to challenge the United States in the Pacific, do not shift U.S. security challenges from one venue to another but rather add to them.”

MSNBC reported this week President Barack Obama called the Republican and Democratic chairpeople of the super committee to remind them indecision is not an outcome he expects to see.