The bipartisan leadership of a special congressional deficit supercommittee has officially announced that the panel has failed to reach an agreement.

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray and Republican Rep. Jeb Hensarling say that despite "intense deliberations" the members of the panel have been unable "to bridge the committee's significant differences."

U.S. Senator Herb Kohl released this statement, "It's most unfortunate that the joint committee couldn't reach an agreement.  Our country has serious issues with long term debt and everybody understands that we need to make difficult choices to address them.  I'll continue to support long term debt reduction that includes a balanced mix of spending cuts and revenue increases."

Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Ron Johnson stated, "Unfortunately, Washington has failed to deal with this by resorting to another round of secret meetings and a 'special committee.'  I was skeptical of the process from the start, but to encourage success, I submitted to the committee a list of savings totaling $1.4 trillion. Reducing the rate of growth in government spending should not be this hard."

Johnson added that, "We need economic growth and real leadership - something that has been absent from Washington for far too long.  America is facing a financial emergency.  It is way past time for us to start acting like it."

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner stated, "I am disappointed, but not surprised that the Select Committee failed to reach an agreement by their deadline," Sensenbrenner said. "The debt crisis will not go away, and deficit reduction should be a top priority even though the Select Committee failed." 

Sensenbrenner went on to say, "The fact remains if we want to give job creators certainty for the future; we have to rein in our out-of-control spending. There is no time to kick the responsibility and burden down the road to future generations. I urge the President to veto any attempt to undo the automatic across-the-board cuts caused by the Select Committee's failure, unless it is accompanied by dollar- for-dollar offsets in spending cuts."

The panel was established by this summer's budget and debt agreement to cut at least $1.2 trillion from the budget over 10 years. But the panel has been divided from the beginning over taxes and cuts to popular government benefit programs like Medicare.

Last-ditch bipartisan talks failed to produce a breakthrough.

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