Hands up those who furrowed their brows or laughed out loud when Congress established a committee to work on fiscal reform and dared call it "super."
Right out of the blocks this grouping, made up of congressional Republicans and Democrats, was hobbled by the fact that it was a creature of this go nowhere, do-nothing Congress.
So the fact that the super committee came up with nothing worth a headline other than an admission of failure should cause little surprise.
This failure, however, should prompt all of us, if not Congress, to look anew at existing proposals aimed at getting America's finances in order. First on the list for reevaluation should be the findings of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, better known as Simpson-Bowles and which, as it happens, is a year old this very week.
A year's worth of a dust is nothing compared to what this Congress can heap on an issue in a day.
Simpson-Bowles was actually the product of a bipartisan grouping which, fortunately perhaps, was never dubbed "super," but which actually managed to come up with real proposals before being kicked to touch by an increasingly dysfunctional Washington.
