On August 2^nd, with the passage of the Budget Control Act, the decision was made to hand an immense amount of power and influence to a relatively small group of people in the form of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (more commonly known as the “super committee”). The idea was that this small group of people would make sweeping decisions on tax code reform  and deficit reduction, which would take some of the political pressure and public criticism off of Congress and the White House. To show that this decision would have teeth, the BCA included a “trigger” effect in which hundreds of billions in cuts would be instantaneously made to both entitlements and defense, something neither Party wanted to see. This stick (as opposed to the carrot of, say, cutting spending?) has two fundamental problems and they’re both starting to show themselves.

First, nothing in congress happens instantaneously, particularly not in a gridlocked congress and definitely not in an election year. Unfortunately for Americans, we happen to be living with both an ideologically divided congress during a Presidential swing election. That means that both sides to the argument, essentially conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats, are going to be looking to foist as much responsibility (and thus, as much blame) as possible on the other side by forgoing the difficult decisions. The super committee may be doing exactly that.

That brings us to the second problem; a lack of political will in an election year. Having been selected as a bipartisan committee, it’s clear that both sides have become so entrenched that they’re now looking for an out. Some of the provisions, including the sweeping directive to rehaul the tax code, may be passed back to the House and Senate committees that were originally tasked with the responsibility. In other words, the super committee members don’t want to be responsible pulling the trigger on hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and the Pentagon, and are trying to pass the buck instead.

It’s a clear signal of how fully entrenched the congress is that they would abdicate so much power to others in the face of major consequences. However, there’s evidence that the “trigger: as it’s called, may not quite have the teeth it did in August. Congressional lawmakers always have the opportunity to downvote an upvote, or to find some other procedural detour around a potentially disastrous piece of legislation. Many lawmakers have been pushing for a vote to kick the BCA down the road, passing a temporary 2012 funding bill instead, and leaving the unpleasantness of the fiscal housecleaning to the next administration.

In the event that the super committee tries to offload its responsibilities, and no one in congress or the White House wants to pick them up, we’ll be left with a grenade in the road. One that will inevitably punted down the road to future administrations, just as it has been for the last decade.