MY VIEW: Maya MacGuineas August 2 2011

In her latest CNN commentary, CRFB president Maya MacGuineas stresses that Washington must do better than the debt deal recently approved by Congress. She writes that the deal saves only about half of what is needed and momentum that was building toward a "grand bargain" was sqandered by lawmakers' unwillingness to compromise and make difficult political choices.

She concludes by saying that her hopes now lie with the 12-member "special committee" that will be tasked with finding further deficit-reduction by November of this year, writing:

I am still holding out hope that the new special committee will exceed expectations and exceed its mandate. If these 12 members really steep themselves in the risks of inaction, or doing too little, and run through the options for coming up with the needed $4 trillion to $5 trillion, perhaps they will break out of their taking-things-off-the-table mentality, and starting putting things back on.

...Granted partisanship, the upcoming election and outside interest groups may all work against this. But we can avoid fixing the real problems for only so long, so maybe, just maybe, we can make this deal real.

Click here to read the full commentary.

"My Views" are works published by members of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, but they do not necessarily reflect the views of all members of the committee.