Supercommittee talks appeared to be on the brink of collapse, Politico reports, “with neither side hopeful that an agreement can be reached before next week’s deadline.”

Bloomberg: “Republicans and Democrats on Congress’s supercommittee are hardening their positions less than a week before a deadline to produce a U.S. deficit-cutting plan and challenging each other to make the first move toward compromise.”

The issue, of course, is the Bush tax cuts. The Wall Street Journal reports Republicans “are digging in against any agreement that does not
extend current income-tax rates, which are scheduled to expire at the
end of 2012.”

The U.S. national debt has now officially surpassed $15 trillion.

Obama administration officials “are quietly bracing for supercommittee failure, with advisers privately saying they are pessimistic that the 12-member Congressional panel will find a way to cut $1.2 trillion from the deficit as required,” the Washington Post reports.

“Perhaps mindful of the long odds of success, Obama has largely left the negotiations alone, after issuing his blueprint in September for more than $3 trillion in savings… At the same time, several Democrats said, any greater involvement by Obama at this stage could have a toxic effect as Democrats and Republicans try to find middle ground. If the president were more deeply engaged, it could force Republicans into a reactionary role.”

A new CNN/Opinion Research survey shows 78% of Americans think it is “somewhat or very unlikely” the committee will develop a plan to significantly reduce the federal budget deficit by the November 23 deadline.

With exactly one week remaining until the supercommittee on deficit
reduction is due to present its recommendations, House Republican
leaders have begun preparing their full conference for a deal that
includes new tax revenues, according to The Hill.

“The
GOP co-chairman of the deficit supercommittee, Rep. Jeb Hensarling
(R-Texas), briefed the House Republican Conference on the details of
multiple offers that GOP members of the panel have made to their
Democratic counterparts… Some conservatives have said they are
concerned with the GOP’s offer, especially considering the pledge most
of them signed to oppose any net tax increase… Hensarling made no
direct reference to Grover Norquist, the author of the anti-tax pledge,
but he brought up pledges in general, and said that ‘his pledge is to
the people of his district.'”

However, Politico notes rank-and-file Republicans are suspicious and “there seems to be a growing civil war on the right over the idea of tax revenues.”

A new congressional analysis, put together by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and obtained by Newsweek, finds Americans earning more than $1 million a year “collect more than $30 billion in government largesse each year.”

“In all, millionaires receive hefty help from Uncle Sam. The $30 billion in handouts, to put it in perspective, amounts to twice as much as the government spends on NASA, and three times the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency. On the other hand, it would only cover the cost of fighting about three months in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still, eliminating them would help make a small dent in the $1.5 trillion congressional leaders are trying to find by Thanksgiving.”

While Grover Norquist’s group Americans for Tax Reform boasts that 238
current members of the House of Representatives have signed its Taxpayer
Protection Pledge, The Hill speaks on the record with numerous lawmakers who seem ready to have their names taken off the list.

“In
its publicly displayed list of signers ‘in the 112th Congress,’
Norquist’s group includes several members who say they have specifically
refused to sign the pledge during their most recent campaigns. The
sheet of paper they signed years ago, the lawmakers say, is no longer
valid… Some Republicans have disavowed the pledge not based on a
dispute over its duration, but because they say it constrains their
policy choices.”

As the supercommittee charged with reducing the deficit works on a plan
that both cuts at least $1.2 trillion over ten years and can pass
Congress, recent shifts by Republican leadership may signal the return
of the “grand bargain” that President Obama and House Speaker John
Boehner (R-OH) had originally tried to negotiate.

Earlier reports indicate that Boehner has softened his line on tax increases in the final deal, while The Hill
reports that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “has made an
about-face in recent days and now favors a huge deficit-reduction
deal.”

“At the beginning of this week, Senate GOP and
Democratic sources said McConnell appeared to favor a $1.2 trillion
package out of the deficit-reduction supercommittee… A $4 trillion
deal has gained more popularity in the Senate GOP conference this week
as lawmakers have become convinced that Obama wants the
deficit-reduction supercommittee to fail.”

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) acknowledged that any bipartisan agreement on debt reduction will need to include some new tax revenue, CBS News reports.

Said Boehner: “I think there is room for revenues, but I think there clearly is a limit to the amount of revenues that are available.”

“The comment was significant because Boehner and other Republican leaders have repeatedly insisted that tax increases are off the table, and most Republicans in the House and Senate have signed a ‘taxpayer protection pledge’ vowing not to raise taxes.”

As the supercommittee approaches its November 23 deadline, by which time
it must approve a plan that cuts the deficit by $1.2 trillion to avoid
across-the-board cuts, The Hill notes the political pressures on the supercommittee’s 12 members.

“The
panel’s members are confronting risk on all sides. For Senate freshmen
like Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), and ambitious House
Democrats like Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and Xavier Becerra (Calif.),
signing onto any agreement could alienate segments of their party’s base
and threaten their advancement in leadership… Some political analysts
note, however, that the members of the supercommittee are insulated by
their solid standing both within their party caucuses and in their home
districts and states, which may have contributed to their selection in
the first place.”

A Newsweek investigation found about five dozen of the most fiscally conservative Republicans “trying to gobble up the very largesse they publicly disown, in the time-honored, budget-busting tradition of bringing home the bacon for local constituents.”

“That’s what I find absolutely bizarre: Republicans moralizing about deficits. That’s like an arsonist moralizing about fire safety. These guys have zero credibility.”

— Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by the Orlando Sentinel, speaking to Florida Democrats.

First Read notes that with the Super Committee’s Thanksgiving deadline fast approaching, “the presidential race might actually take a back seat – at least for a few weeks — to what’s happening in Washington.”

“Of course, the same dividing lines that caused Boehner and Obama from failing to come to a grand bargain are still there. And now with political finger-pointing taking place among committee members themselves, this seems destined to end in stalemate. What’s worse: There’s talk the deadline of Nov. 23rd is not real. In fact, even the threatened automatic cuts, which wouldn’t go into effect until 2013, seem less real today. Who doesn’t envision Congress saying, ‘Well, no agreement, the automatic cuts will take place in 2013’ — only to have the lame duck Congress after the ’12 election react to the election results and go in another direction?”

Bloomberg: “A record 49% of Americans live in a household where someone receives at least one type of government benefit, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And 63% of all federal spending this year will consist of checks written to individuals for which the government receives currently no services, the White House budget office estimates. That’s up from 46% in 1975 and 18% in 1940.”

“Those figures will climb in coming years. The 75 million baby boomers have only begun their long march into retirement, while President Obama’s health-care overhaul will extend insurance coverage to more than 30 million additional people.”