Supercommittee > Superlobbyists > Supercompromise?

The National Journal, Politico, and Huffpost have stories on the lobbying that’s expected to arise from the debt deal.  The health care and defense industries are likely to be especially active, given the reductions in defense spending and Medicare provider payments that will take effect in 2013 if the supercommittee can’t come to an agreement (or if Congress doesn’t approve it). 

Even for those who tend to worry about the influence of big-money lobbyists, this could actually be a good thing.  As I suggested in this post, the supercommittee process has the potential to provide a way around partisan stalemate on deficit reduction.  Heavy lobbying by defense and health-care interests — aimed at preventing big cuts that will hurt their pocketbooks — can be expected to make a compromise more likely.  To borrow Heather Gerken‘s phrase, this may be a way of harnessing politics to fix politics.

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