Bloomberg View: The Supercommittee’s Common Ground; Europe, Centralize Now!

On Sept. 12, 60 business leaders, along with former lawmakers, budget directors, and Treasury officials, urged the congressional supercommittee to “go big” by adding trillions more to its deficit-reduction target of $1.2 trillion. It’s a laudable goal—and with elections only 14 months off, increasingly unrealistic. Instead of aiming for the sun, the supercommittee should settle for a planet, even a moon.

Many good ideas live on common ground. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, part of the New America Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan policy institute, recently outlined 40-plus proposals from House Republicans and various bipartisan panels, including the deficit commission led by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. It also listed ideas very nearly agreed on (until a last-minute blowup) during this summer’s debt-limit negotiations.