Distrust, party issues sink supercommittee

It was Friday afternoon when chances to reach a deal by the moribund supercommittee fell to two of the most important men on Capitol Hill not elected to Congress -- David Krone and Barry Jackson.

Krone, chief of staff for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and Jackson, the top aide to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), had been quietly deputized to find a last-ditch deal to avert yet another failure of Congress' own making. Both had been there before: They were instrumental in preventing a government shutdown in the spring and raising the national debt ceiling during the summer.

But moments after Krone rejected one of Jackson's proposals over taxes, details of the negotiations were leaked to the media. Krone and the Senate Democrats were furious, the talks blew up and, in effect, so did the supercommittee.

The three-month slog formally known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction failed because of a politically unpalatable mix of distrust, divided motives and partisan toxicity. Its demise was lamented in both parties as a "missed opportunity," but there had been clear signs from the start that it was going to be enormously difficult to find the "sweet spot" for a mega-budget deal.

Despite public proclamations of optimism, the panel hadn't formally met in weeks, and some of its members had started to leave town for Thanksgiving last weekend.

On Monday, the supercommittee's co-chairmen, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), officially declared defeat.

The final curtain fell after Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) made a last-second proposal for several hundred billion dollars in new tax revenue, with the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees working out details, including top tax rates. Republicans swatted it away as way too little, way too late.

A frenetic last month of negotiations included dozens of proposals exchanged between the two sides, but none would ever pass bipartisan muster. There were numerous near-misses, and the talks continued into Kerry's office on Monday morning after he ran into Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) during TV interviews.

The intricate political calculus wasn't just Democrats versus Republicans. Reid was forced to repeatedly assure House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi he wasn't going to cut a deal behind her back. Pelosi and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) were described as peeved when they became aware of the back-channel talks between Krone and Jackson, which had been blessed by Reid and Murray.

The supercommittee began with bipartisan meetings and secrets kept behind closed doors, and while stories of bipartisan friendship emerged, the new bonds were not enough.

Tax chairmen from both chambers, Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), worked closely together. Kerry and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) went on bike rides, and the two spoke for the better part of the past four days on the Democrats' last-ditch tax plan.