Republicans apparently just submitted a last-ditch effort to get agreement on the Super Committee. It was a $545 billion proposal, less than half of the minimum requirement to avoid all of the automatic trigger cuts. And it included $3 billion in tax increases.

For those of you scoring at home, that’s a ratio of about 181:1.

Democrats rejected it.

The deadline for the Super Committee to complete its recommendations for deficit reduction is Wednesday, November 23. Realistically, they’ve already passed that deadline, because any agreement must go to the Congressional Budget Office for scoring. I guess Monday is the real deadline for that scoring process. So they plan to work through the weekend to try and salvage something. Considering how things have gone in the previous several weeks, I don’t think the last few days will amount to much.

An article planted by Republican operatives looking to absolve their party of blame for failure on the Super Committee suggests that the rank and file are being persuaded to accept tax increases as part of an overall deal. The entire premise of the article is wrong, because it posits as a “tax increase” a deal that would cut taxes by $3.3 trillion

A new Gallup poll shows Americans most concerned about jobs and the economy, but only 6 percent think the federal budget deficit is the most import concern. This huge disconnect between what Americans care about and what Congress is focus on contributes to the low esteem in which Americans hold the current Congress.

So this is interesting. President Obama did a set of phone calls today with Patty Murray and Jeb Hensarling, the co-chairs of the Super Committee. It included the usual platitudes about reaching a deal, a balanced approach, etc. Everything Obama has said a hundred times before. This was new, however, and I assume precipitated by the chatter that the trigger will never be pulled, that Congress will find a way to back out of the cuts, particularly the defense cuts.

With the small fry measures in the American Jobs Act almost out of the way, the debate turns to the largest measures in the bill, particularly the payroll tax cut. While this is another example of a tax expenditure, at least this one goes to the working poor as well as everyone else, and it generally acts as a 2% wage increase in paychecks, which for the worker making the median income means $1,000 a year. There are valid concerns about how this impacts the Social Security Trust Fund, but the consensus take is that a fragile economy cannot afford to pull back on this boost to discretionary income, which will have an impact on consumer spending and the broader economy.

Sam Stein reports that the Obama Administration plans to make a federal case out of this over the next month.

The Democrats on the Super Committee, in their efforts to reach an deal with Republicans, have offered a new deficit reduction package and just like their last offer this one also contains cuts to Medicare benefits.

A couple days ago, Dick Durbin was confronted by constituents in Illinois and forced to take a position assuring protection of Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. Two days later, he offered to put “entitlements” on the table in exchange for phony GOP tax proposals that benefit the rich.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has succeeded in changing the focus of Washington’s economic attention from deficit and debts to questions of economic justice and jobs. The President’s pivot to jobs hasn’t gotten a single jobs bill through Congress, but the changed conversation has killed the momentum of the Super Committee and created predictions of its failure.

You will be stunned to know that Democrats and Republicans are having trouble reaching consensus with less than three weeks to go until the Super Committee needs to make recommendations on deficit reduction.