The so-called supercommittee to reduce the federal deficit has turned out not to be so super, after announcing this week a failure to meet a deadline to cut $1.2 trillion from the budget over the next 10 years.

So what happens now? Theoretically and legally, for now, automatic spending cuts to achieve those goals will be triggered and spread across the board.

Practically speaking, nothing will happen. Lawmakers are already preparing legislation to delete the automatic spending cuts, so the Washington money machine can chug on.

Nonetheless, Wisconsin's Republicans were quick to chastise the supercommittee's failure.

"Last week, our nation's debt surpassed the $15 trillion mark, and it continues to grow by approximately $100 billion a month," Sen. Ron Johnson said. "Add in the unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare, and federal pensions, and our nation's total liabilities equal $99 trillion, or $321,000 per person. When you consider the fact that our $99 trillion liability exceeds the entire net asset base of the United States, it is easy to see how bad things are."

Johnson said secret meetings and a special committee were doomed to fail from the start, but he nonetheless proposed a list of savings totaling $1.4 trillion.

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

U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner said the failure was expected.

"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 said out-of-control spending has to be reined in, and he cautioned against the congressional attempt to repeal upcoming across-the-board cuts.

"There is no time to kick the responsibility and burden down the road to future generations," he said. "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 committee failure means that taxes are likely to go up, too. Tax cuts passed in the Bush administration are set to end at the end of 2012.

Democrats object

But Democrats blamed Republican stubbornness for the failure, saying the GOP refused to allow tax increases on wealthy Americans.

According to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Republicans were protecting the rich even when polls show most people support higher taxes on the wealthy.

Democrats in Wisconsin particularly targeted Republican Sean Duffy, who represents a seat Democrats think they might win back next year.

"The congressional supercommittee has failed to develop a bipartisan agreement to reduce the deficit because Republicans like Representative Sean Duffy demanded more tax breaks for billionaires and protected tax loopholes for Big Oil," the group stated. "Duffy has even signed conservative lobbyist Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform pledge to protect tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy at the expense of the middle class and seniors."

The group cited former Ronald Reagan economic advisor Bruce Bartlett's report that 27 polls have shown that the American public supports higher taxes.

Meanwhile, the liberal crusade for higher taxes continued from Maya MacGuineas, the president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

"You can not get to any reasonable [fiscal] goal without new revenues," she said. "Policies that exempt tax cuts from budget constraints are not only economically dangerous, they are cowardly."

Democrats also say 1,500 millionaires paid no income taxes in 2009.

"At a time when America is borrowing about 40 cents of every dollar it spends because tax revenues cannot keep up with government spending, hundreds of America's wealthiest households are paying no income tax at all," the DCCC stated. "According to a recently released IRS report, almost 1,500 of America's 230,000 millionaires avoided paying any federal income tax in 2009."

Conservatives counter that, while that may be true, nearly half of all American households also paid no income taxes in 2009, and the rich pay more in taxes, both absolutely and as a percentage of income. Conservatives also say spending, now at 24 percent of GDP, is at a historic high.

House budget committee chairman Paul Ryan echoed GOP sentiments for absolute budget cuts, and blasted President Barack Obama for proposing new spending.

"Unfortunately, Democrats on the Joint Committee never 'coalesced' around a plan, refused to consider structural reforms to government spending on health care, and insisted on at least $1 trillion in higher taxes on hardworking Americans," Ryan said. "Making matters worse, President Obama has still not put forward a credible budget plan, threatened to veto serious solutions that lacked massive tax increases, and spent the past several months pushing for additional spending."

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