Do your job. That's all we're asking. Being picked for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction wasn't a plum assignment to be sure. But here these twelve lawmakers are. Six Senators and six Representatives. Six Democrats and six Republicans. And after countless hours of public meetings, closed door meetings, and party only meetings, it's time to deliver. T minus 19 days and counting until the legally-mandated November 23rd deadline.

We did not need a new committee to tackle this task: 535 lawmakers representing 300 million Americans is a “super committee” and Congress has all the authority they need to reduce our deficit and start taming our debt. But here we are. Get over yourselves. The job is to find at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction. Just do it.

Here's our plan that yields more than $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction before you even get to most of the entitlement programs which would drive that number far higher. If we can do it, the members of the Super Committee certainly should be able to.

Spreading the pain is critical. As 100 members of the House – 40 Republicans and 60 Democrats – wrote “To succeed, all options for mandatory and discretionary spending and revenues must be on the table.” In other words everyone's ox must be gored. For revenues, tax loopholes and breaks must be eliminated and the tax code made to be flatter, simpler, and fairer. Which means, yes, some people and corporations will pay more taxes than they do under the current byzantine system. Mandatory spending must be curtailed, and that means benefits will change. Agriculture has been living high off the hog on the public dole for too long. Medicare has been underwater in revenue for years with costs growing far faster than revenue, and Social Security has just started to go underwater, too. And despite the caterwauling you hear from the Armed Service committee, we can afford to make further cuts to the defense budget, the largest component of our discretionary spending. What we cannot afford to do is line the pockets of private contractors who charge a premium for government services, or continue to throw money at weapons systems that are outdated.

Spreading the pain is important politically and substantively, but so is how, where, and when you cut. The $1.2 trillion target is for deficit reduction over ten years. If changes to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare protect current beneficiaries, the savings are going to be slight in terms of deficit reduction in the near-term but could be important in terms of long term management of the debt. Cuts in discretionary spending can yield short and long term savings, and eliminating wasteful tax expenditures can result in immediate revenue as well.

Many of the critics of the Super Committee have valid points. The fragile state of the economy also can’t be ignored. There is a balancing act between making real and legitimate savings to reduce the deficit without cutting essential or important services and support in a weak economy. On the other side, figuring out what government should and should not be doing is an important element of reducing our deficit. Just because government was once involved in an activity doesn't mean we should continue. Smart, targeted cuts that serve to prioritize government spending will make the government work better down the road. But there is no reason these concerns should impede the Committee's process. The tired kabuki dance around lines drawn in the sand over policy positions must be discarded.

We all dug this hole – Congress, the Executive Branch, and the American people who elected them. It's time to take the strong fiscal medicine and not just stop digging, but start filling the hole in.

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TCS Quote of The Week

“If you spend a buck and borrow 42 cents of it, you're stupid.” — former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming (Roll Call)