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CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT

NC and US Lawmakers Urge Super Committee to Meet Deadline

A bipartisan coalition of more than 100 U.S. House members and more than forty U.S. Senators addressed the super committee Wednesday.

WHQR’s Michelle Bliss reports that the deadline for cutting $1.2 trillion over the next ten years is quickly approaching.

Super committee members have until next Wednesday to strike a compromise, and lawmakers like U.S. Senator Kay Hagan urged them to cut $4 trillion instead of $1.2 trillion.

Senator Hagan:

“We’ve got to look at our tax code. We’ve got to look at reducing the loopholes and the credits. One of those great examples is the $6 billion in ethanol tax credits currently going to our big oil companies. The reason for that when it was put into place a number of years ago made sense, but it doesn’t make sense in today’s environment.”

Hagan, of North Carolina, says missing next week's deadline would have major consequences with automatic spending cuts.

“Sequestration would go into effect. And sequestration means that these $1.2 trillion in cuts would take effect beginning January of 2013. And what I’ve called the ‘poisoned pill’ in this is that 50 percent of those cuts would fit the defense area.”

Hagan says that with US debt at more than $10 trillion, more savings are needed for a sustainable economic recovery plan.

Do you have insight or expertise on this topic? If so, we'd like to hear from you. Please email theWHQR News Team.

After growing up in Woodbridge, Virginia, Michelle attended Virginia Tech before moving to Wilmington to complete her Master in Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina in Wilmington. Her reporting and nonfiction writing have been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, within the pages of Wrightsville Beach Magazine, and in literary journals like River Teeth and Ninth Letter. Before moving to Wilmington, Michelle served as the general manager for WUVT, a community radio station in Blacksburg, Virginia. She lives with her husband Scott and their pups, Katie, Cooper, and Mosey.