Mike Allen: “The supercommittee last met Nov. 1 — three weeks ago! It was a public hearing featuring a history lesson, ‘Overview of Previous Debt Proposals,’ with Alan Simpson, Erskine Bowles, Pete Domenici and Alice Rivlin. The last PRIVATE meeting was Oct. 26. You might as well stop reading right there: The 12 members (6 House, 6 Senate; 6 R, 6 D) were never going to strike a bargain, grand or otherwise, if they weren’t talking to each other. Yes, we get that real deal-making occurs in small groups. But there never WAS a functioning supercommittee: There was Republican posturing and Democratic posturing, with some side conversations across the aisle.”

“As long as we have some Republican lawmakers who feel more enthralled
with a pledge they took to a Republican lobbyist than they do to a
pledge to the country to solve the problems, this is going to be hard to
do.”

— Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), in an interview with CNN, on Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge blocking compromise among the debt supercommittee members.

“The congressional committee tasked with reducing the federal deficit is poised to admit defeat as soon as Monday, and its unfinished business will set up a year-end battle over emergency jobless benefits and an expiring payroll tax holiday,” the Washington Post reports.

“The policy battle comes as the parties are gearing up for a high-stakes election season dominated by economic concerns, with both the White House and Congress in play. The political pressure that has helped keep the 12-member supercommittee from compromising on hot-button issues such as taxes is sure to grow more intense.”

“Congress’s last-gasp deficit-cut talks broke into two tracks Friday, with members of a special committee continuing to seek an elusive $1.2 trillion deal while party leaders discussed a smaller, backup plan in case they fail,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Talk of a Plan B reflected the bleak outlook facing the committee as it heads into its final days. It technically has until Wednesday, but the real deadline is midnight Monday, since members by law need 48 hours to scrutinize any plan before voting on it.”

New York Times: “Despite time running out on the committee created by the summer agreement to raise the federal debt limit, negotiations were in disarray, with Republicans and Democrats even disputing what precisely divided them. One panel member said that he still had slim hope for a deal but that it would take an extraordinary development to end the stalemate and avoid a series of automatic cuts in 2013 that would reduce federal services and make substantial reductions in Pentagon spending.”

New census data to be released next week finds one in three Americans — about 100 million people — is in poverty or just above it, the New York Times reports.

“After a lost decade of flat wages and the worst downturn since the Great Depression, the findings can be thought of as putting numbers to the bleak national mood — quantifying the expressions of unease erupting in protests and political swings. They convey levels of economic stress sharply felt but until now hard to measure.”

The House of Representatives voted 261-165  to reject a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, Politico reports.

The vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed. The House last voted on a balanced budget amendment in 1995, which passed with a 300-132 vote.