This is a job for

[CatWoman]

CONGRESS-MAN!!!! :rofl:

[gratuitous]

1. And, of course, the committee will refuse to consider any solution

The committee will refuse to consider any solution that includes paying to replace the dam, especially if such repairs are paid for with a surtax on the wealthy. This isn't satire, either. The congressional super committee is having problems because (spoiler alert) none of the Republicans will accept any proposal that includes having the wealthy get their butts out of the wagon and help with the pulling.

[TheWraith]

3. No surprise there.

For all the pants-shitting hysteria people engaged in around here about the "sooper committee!" it was pretty obvious from day one that the odds were stacked against them successfully getting anything through, and probably against them even making a recommendation.

[gratuitous]

4. I don't know that it's "hysteria"

Because there's always the possibility (I know, remote as it seems) that some Democrat on the committee, in an effort to produce something, will go along with the Republican intransigence and a proposal will come out that gives the Republicans 98% of what they want - again - with some vague promise that somewhere down the line the Republicans will consider raising taxes on the wealthy.

But I don't know why anyone would shit their pants in hysterics over such an unlikely occurrence.

[TheWraith]

5. The catch is, any plan would have to pass Congress.

And part of the hysteria was people believing the "super Congress!" hype--pushed by, let's be honest, propagandists--that supposedly the committee could do anything on their own, or create laws by themselves, or force something through Congress. None of which is true. Even if they managed to hack together something that could pass the committee, what are the odds of Dems and Reps getting together in Congress long enough to support it? Particularly if it, as the propagandists claimed, was going to cut Social Security and Medicare? Little to no chance--even something as bland and boiled down as the debt deal barely squeaked through, without even having to have anything more controversial in it than the debt ceiling.

[gratuitous]

6. And since there's no possible way

That a recommendation out of the super committee could be demagogued even into serious consideration, let alone passage . . . waitasecond.

Anyway, I don't recall anyone saying that the committee could do anything "on its own." But seeing how the supine Democrats in Congress and the White House have been overrun several times during the last five years, despite their numerical superiority, I don't count it as "hysterical" to think that the super committee would be used as yet another vehicle for advancing Republican proposals. The flip side is that the super committee surely isn't a tool of good governance, and the possibility that something liberal or progressive would come out of it is infinitessimal.

[Fire Walk With Me]

2. K&R!