WASHINGTON: Standing on the brink of failure, lawmakers tasked with reining in galloping US deficits by $1.2 trillion over 10 years groped Friday towards an elusive compromise with no outward signs of progress.
The 12-member congressional "supercommittee" must by law adopt a plan by Wednesday or risk triggering draconian automatic across-the-board cuts shared between some social programs and military spending.
"We are painfully, painfully aware of the deadline that is staring us in the face," Representative Jeb Hensarling, the co-chair of the panel, told reporters after a closed-door meeting with fellow committee Republicans.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned that the cuts, which would kick in come January 2013, would pose a national security risk by leaving the Pentagon weaker, slower, and smaller than at any time since World War II.
Hensarling said the committee would meet Friday and then through the weekend if necessary to "try to find sufficient common ground" on a solution to "simultaneously address both our nation's jobs crisis and the debt crisis."
"We're exploring every angle right now," Democratic Representative and committee member Chris Van Hollen said after a separate meeting with senators from both parties who sit on the panel.
The committee, created in an August deal on raising the US debt limit, has locked up over Republican refusals of Democratic calls to raise taxes on the very wealthy in return for cuts to cherished social safety net programs.
"Any agreement has to meet two tests: One, it has to do something for jobs and the economy -- the American people are hurting, we need to do something to get the economy going, that also helps to reduce the deficit," said Van Hollen.
"Number two, it has to be a balanced approach. It has to meet the test that any American would look at and conclude it was a fair deal," said the Democrat, who is close to Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Van Hollen played down talk that the committee could settle on a smaller deficit-cutting plan, with automatic cuts making up the shortfall, saying: "We're still focused on trying to get an agreement on the full amount."
Democrats have reportedly offered reductions in so-called "entitlement" health care programs for the poor and elderly as well as the Social Security pension plan dear to their core voters but insisted the rich must pay more.
Republicans have warned that will cripple job-creating investment at a time when the brittle US economy labors under stubbornly high unemployment of more than nine percent.
And they have reportedly countered with an offer heavy on proposed cuts to the safety net and domestic spending in general -- a move Democrats have rejected.
Any deal would require majority approval on the committee, which is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, after which the full Congress would need to adopt it by December 23 to avoid the automatic cuts.
Some Republicans have campaigned to repeal the military spending cuts, a move Democratic leaders have made clear they would fiercely oppose.
"We're doing the best we can," said Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate finance committee and a supercommittee member.
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