"Failure is good"

Krugman debunks the Super-Committee:

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a complete turkey! It’s the supercommittee!

By next Wednesday, the so-called supercommittee, a bipartisan group of legislators, is supposed to reach an agreement on how to reduce future deficits. Barring an evil miracle — I’ll explain the evil part later — the committee will fail to meet that deadline.

If this news surprises you, you haven’t been paying attention. If it depresses you, cheer up: In this case, failure is good.

Budget Challenge

This is a new "budget challenge" from Pew Charitable Trust that allows you to adjust the various potential spending and revenue factors and come up with your own one-person "SuperCommittee" solution.  I have not played with this version yet, but found a similiar calculator from the New York Times revealed that these issues are not as insoluble as various "serious people" and politicians would have you think.  A lot of the discourse is thinly veiled ideology. Check it out HERE.