In an interview at The Heritage Foundation, Texas Senator John Cornyn had strong words for President Obama. “Unfortunately the President is already out complaining trying to channel Harry Truman, railing against a “Do Nothing Congress”, when he has apparently given up on governing and has decided to campaign full-time and he’s not really contributing towards the solution.”

Cornyn (R-TX) was at Heritage to stress the importance of enacting the strongest possible Balanced Budget Amendment, one that caps federal spending at 18 percent of the economy and requires a super-majority vote in Congress to increase taxes.

During his interview, Cornyn gave a brief overview of that fight:

Starting in the House this week they will vote on a Balanced Budget Amendment. And then before the end of the year, we are guaranteed by the provisions of the Budget Control Act a vote in the Senate. I expect there will be two votes. One on what I call the “strong” version that 47 Republicans have co-sponsored and another on one that will, honestly, be more in the nature of a cover vote.for Democrats up for election in 2012.

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Like the recent east coast earthquake, the Budget Control Act of 2011 left Washington shaken and completely confused, the epicenter being the Department of Defense.

While some are saying that the super committee will be able to reach a deal and cut the additional $1.5 trillion (half from defense), others are not so confident there will be any agreement, resulting in automatic caps for the next nine years.  Either way, defense spending will make or break a super committee budget deal.

Truthfully, Congress has a better chance of willfully trimming the budget at the super committee stage because they have more tools to orchestrate a reduction. Even if they deadlock, they’ll push through artificial savings mechanisms, anything to merit a Mission Accomplished banner. Medicare doc fixes are an example of such “solutions”. Though Congress’s intention was to curb Medicare spending, they came up with an unworkable formula that has now resulted in temporary increases and extensions of existing physician reimbursement rates, all in an attempt to circumvent a long-term solution. Applying this to what Congress may do with defense spending, a successful deal may be nothing more than a tacit convention of today’s culture on Capitol Hill, do anything to avoid Armageddon. And some do consider the trigger provision of the bill to be deadly. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta even called it the “doomsday mechanism.”

Under sequestration, or the trigger, defense cuts are still a variable certainty. We simply do not know how bad it is. It all boils down to the language of the bill. Here’s why:

1.The bill does not organize any of its spending requirements against any baseline.

2.Positive numbers (discretionary spending caps) without context forces you to make arbitrary assumptions.

3.No analyst can come up with a number that is reasonable/unreasonable.

The question on everyone’s mind: What on earth do we base these numbers against?

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From The Associated Press:

Riven by partisanship, the Republican-controlled House approved emergency legislation Friday night to prevent a threatened government default and bundled it off to swift and certain defeat in the Senate.

“We are almost out of time” for a compromise, warned President Barack Obama as U.S. financial markets trembled at the prospect of economic chaos next week.

The final outcome—with the White House and Senate Democrats calling anew for compromise while criticizing Republicans as Tuesday’s deadline drew near—was anything but certain.

The House vote was 218-210, almost entirely along party lines.

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