Barney Frank: Supercommittee's Failure 'Good News

As predicted by some analysts, the total failure of the Congressional supercommittee has been greeted by various politicians as "good news."

One in particular, was happy with the most recent development.

"Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said the congressional supercommittee's failure Monday to come to an agreement on spending reforms was 'good news' because it will help to end the Bush-era tax cuts and give Democrats more bargaining power in budget negotiations," reports The Hill.

As many Blaze readers are aware, because the supercommittee failed to reach any sort of constructive agreement, $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts have been set in motion to take effect in 2013 through sequestration.

However, several "hawks" in Congress are vowing to undo half of the cuts because many of them deeply gouge defense spending. For instance, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said that he was readying a bill that would prevent the defense cuts.

On the opposite side of the political aisle, Barney Frank, who has always promoted cuts in defense spending, said "that gives Democrats the upper hand," citing President Obama’s threat Monday to veto attempts to avoid the cuts altogether.

“The people who want to say ‘no’ have more leverage,” Frank said in a telephone interview with the Hill. “Every showdown until now, the right wing had more leverage. They tended to benefit more from gridlock. Now, thanks to sequestration and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, gridlock is bad for the right wing. So they are now going to be forced to deal.”

Frank said the supercommittee’s inability to produce a plan was not a failure of Congress, but rather a reflection of the country’s “peak divisions.”

So what solution does Frank think is appropriate?

He think that Democrats should offer to extend the Bush tax cuts for the middle class while ending them for the wealthy, because that could then count "as savings against the automatic cuts."

“And if you don’t like it,” Frank said, “well, then we’ll just sit back, see sequestration and the taxes go up on everybody.”

See Frank explain to Kieth Olberman why the supercommittee's failure might be the "Democrats gain":

Of course, going back to the right side of the aisle, conservative radio host personality Rush Limbaugh is absolutely convinced that the supercommittee acted exactly as it was supposed to:

"So the inside-the-Beltway crowd is still wringing its hands today over the fact that there was no budget deal. The super committee failed to come to an agreement, and I'm blue in the face telling you that it behaved exactly as it was supposed to behave," Limbaugh said on his show on Tuesday.

"It ended up doing exactly what it was supposed to do, and you're blue in the face hearing it. They were not supposed to come to an agreement. There was not supposed to be any kind of a deal. And, lo and behold, Obama held a five-minute press availability today. What did he do? He went out and blamed the Republicans. Mission accomplished! That was the whole point of this," he reiterated.

"'Do-nothing Congress! A super committee that couldn't even come up with budget cuts and tax increases,' that won't be implemented even 'til 2013," Limbaugh said. "'They couldn't even do that!' And right on cue, there's Obama in front of the microphones and the cameras this morning saying, 'Yep,' and blaming the Republicans for it."