Were you disappointed that the "supercommittee" didn't come up with a plan to cut spending before Thanksgiving? Well, you shouldn't have been! It was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Even in the heydey of bipartisan cooperation (whenever that may have been), it would have been an extremely difficult task. In today's divisive political climate, it was downright impossible.
But all is not lost! It turns out that our friends in commerce and industry are ready to ride to the rescue. This self-sacrificing spirit in the for-profit sector is not new. The oil and gas industry (and their "people" have been telling us for months they will create millions of jobs if we just don't tax them, and open still more areas for their drilling. Then came AT&T, which was going to create 96,000 (!) jobs if only they were allowed to merge with T-Mobile.
That was then, when jobs were on everybody's mind. With the failure of the supercommittee, however, the problem of the hour is the deficit, so the CTIA (i.e. the wireless communications industry), which already gave us "freedom," is prepared to throw itself into the breach and help reduce the deficit. How? Well, if only we will devote more broadband spectrum to them, they'll sell more phones and thus pay more taxes, contributing to bringing down the deficit.
Sure they will.