Little has been accomplished in Washington, D.C., during 2011: Congress and the White House fought over the best strategies to bolster the economy, create jobs, and reduce the federal deficit. All eyes are now on a Congressional “Super Committee” that is charged with crafting at least $1.2 trillion in budget cuts. What little has trickled out from the mostly closed-door meetings is not reassuring.

The roadblocks are familiar and not surprising: Should there be tax increases? Comprehensive tax reform? Entitlement reform? What government programs should be cut and by how much?

There are no easy answers, and there is not much reason to expect the Super Committee now to achieve what has eluded lawmakers during the last year. Yet, with the November 2012 elections approaching, the White House and Congress are looking nervously over their shoulders at a visibly angry electorate. And so the deliberations continue.

Underscoring the widespread discontent with all political leaders, registered voters now divide almost equally on whether President Barack Obama and the Republican majority in the House each deserve another term in power, according to a recent United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection poll.

A recap of 2011 validates the discontent. Three times in the last 12 months, the White House and the Congressional leadership took the economy to the brink:

In December 2010, an eleventh-hour compromise on the Bush-era tax rules kept the government functioning.

In March, a last-minute deal on a funding measure avoided a government shutdown.

In August, with only days to spare, the factions agreed to raise the government’s debt ceiling. Yet, the lackluster deal and the brinksmanship employed to reach it resulted in a jarring downgrade of the U.S. bond rating.

Now, once again, Congress and the White House are teetering on the edge, waiting to see if the Super Committee can do the job. The committee itself consists of 12 members of Congress, with six from the House and six from the Senate, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. It was created in August as a part of the debt-ceiling legislation.

The Super Committee was charged to—by November 23, 2011—find at least $1.2 trillion in additional deficit reduction over a 10-year period. The committee’s recommendations will be put to a simple up or down vote by Congress by December 23, 2011. Significantly, this vote will not be subject to amendments or Senate filibusters.

If a $1.2-trillion package is not agreed to and passed by the deadline, a “trigger mechanism” would enact $1.2-trillion in automatic across-the-board spending cuts—split evenly between national security and domestic (with Medicaid and Social Security shielded from cuts and Medicare limited to cuts of no more than 2 percent). The cuts would not take effect, however, until a year later—January 1, 2013.

The International Warehouse Logistics Association (IWLA) urged the Super Committee to seek bold solutions instead of avoiding controversial proposals like entitlement reform. IWLA’s recommendations include:

Go beyond the $1.2-trillion mandate and take bold steps to rein in spending, reform the tax code, reduce the deficit, and ultimately lower the national debt. At the same time, austerity must be balanced with prudent investments in infrastructure.

Tackle the fundamental problems, including genuine structural reform of entitlement programs and a fundamental and complete overhaul of the U.S. tax code to bring revenue and spending back into alignment.

At this writing, with time running out before the committee’s deadline, the two sides remain far apart. Perhaps the most telling sign that the committee is in trouble: rank-and-file lawmakers in both parties are scrambling to disarm the “trigger,” recognizing that the mandatory across-the-board cuts would be arbitrary and harsh with alarming ramifications for defense and domestic programs alike. Congressional leaders dismiss this possibility, however, saying the trigger will be enforced if no agreement is reached.

The stakes could not be higher. Yet, with the clock ticking, many wonder: can the Super Committee actually do what no one else in Washington has been able to do? And, if it fails, what happens next? Will the theatrics continue on until Election Day? And can the country wait that long?

Stay tuned… wt