Meanwhile, at the Supercommittee

How's our bipartisan commission on solving the deficit problem getting along? A sample from their second meeting:

“We have a spending-driven debt crisis,” announced Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.), the Republican co-chairman. “I hope that we’ll be able to dwell somewhat today on just how significantly the big entitlement programs are the long-term drivers of this problem.”

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) countered that “the biggest portion” of the shortfall, other than the effects of the economic collapse, “are the tax cuts in 2001 and 2002, the Bush tax cuts.” The wealthy, he argued, “should be willing and ready to ante up, to meet their patriotic duty to contribute revenues.”

I love the smell of stalemate in the morning.