Deficit Reduction Super Committee to Make Key Decisions

Congressman Xavier Becerra, one of 12 appointed to the Congressional Super Committee on deficit reduction, said he believes every avenue to solving the debt problem should be on the table.

The committee, appointed earlier this month, is tasked with cutting more than $1 trillion from the national budget.

Becerra said all avenues to reducing the debt need to be debated and nothing should be off the table at the beginning of the process.

He used the example of social security as something that he doesn’t want to see cut, but should at least be considered.

“Let me fight, on principle, for those things that I believe in,” he said of how he believes the process should take place.

Extending the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire, is one of the key decisions the super committee will have to discuss.

Becerra said he believes the tax cuts should be allowed to expire and the rate returned to the prior level because it was a driving force of the current deficit.

“If you take the Bush tax cuts off the table, you are essentially saying the main driver of these deficits that we have shouldn’t be considered, that would be wrong,” he said.

Becerra said that while Republicans want to extent the tax cuts, doing so doesn’t make fiscal sense.

“They haven’t worked for the first 10 years, why would you extend them and cost the budget some $3 trillion for the 10 years?”

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