Henry Hazlitt and the Supercommittee

From Huffington Post, 7/31/11:

In order to shore up GOP support for a deal to raise the debt ceiling, Senate Democrats are exploring ways of giving the proposed "super Congress" even greater super powers...

 

From NPR, August 10, 2011:

The new "Debt Supercommittee" created by the recent deficit ceiling deal now has 9 of its 12 members...

The panel's task will be to create a bipartisan plan for cutting the federal deficit by around $1.5 trillion.

If the panel fails to reach an agreement, automatic cuts would be made...

 

From Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal by William E. Leuchtenburg (Chapter 2):

"Yes, we could smell the depression in the air," one writer remembered of "that historically cruel winter of 1932-33..."

Many Americans came to despair of the whole political process, a contempt for Congress, for parties, for democratic institutions...

Many believed that the long era of economic growth in the western world had come to an end.

Many argued that the country could get out of the morass of indecision only by finding a leader and vesting in him dictatorial powers. Some favored an economic supercouncil which would ignore Congress and issue edicts; Henry Hazlitt proposed abandoning Congress for a directorate of twelve men.

 
We're almost there, Henry.


// Leuchtenburg's Hazlitt reference can be seen on page 30 at this Scribd link.