What If Super Committee Fails? Members Suggest Congress Would Rethink Sequestration

On revenues, Hensarling suggested that Republicans would be willing to support $250 million in tax increases—which he characterized as closing loopholes—in exchange for tax reform.

"Whatever damage would be done by $250 billion of new taxes we think would be offset by a system that would help create jobs," he said.

But during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, another panel member, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., took a swipe at the so-called “dynamic scoring” that some Republican members of the deficit reduction committee reportedly are considering as a way to estimate how changes in tax policy might generate changes in the economy.

“We’ve got to come up with a plan that [the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office] will score,” said Clyburn, as opposed, he said, to “dynamic growth.” Clyburn said, “Let’s take this down to actual numbers, tax cuts, tax increases, entitlement cuts and entitlement increases.”

But Clyburn also acknowledged that even the six Democrats on the committee aren’t in agreement with each other.

“The fact of the matter is democrats have not coalesced around a plan,” admitted Clyburn. But he also said, “Republicans don’t have a [singular] plan.”

“I think we are there to develop a bipartisan plan,” he said.

"It's been a roller coaster ride. I will say this: I respect my Democrat colleagues. ... We haven't given up hope," said Hensarling during his CNN appearance.

Meanwhile, one member of the Senate's so-called bipartisan Gang of Six argued on Sunday that if the deficit super committee fails, then Congress should turn to proposals put forward over the summer by the group that call for nearly $4 trillion in cuts over 10 years.

"We've tried this congressional process. I think we need to let that play itself out. We want to be there to support it. We want that super committee to be successful, but if they're not successful we think that the Simpson-Bowles approach or the Gang of Six something that has got that $4 trillion number. That ought to at least get a vote as well," Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said State of the Union.

The Gang of Six, which includes Senate Minority Leader Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Sens. Warner, Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., issued the outlines of a plan, based on the Simpson-Bowles report, that called for $3.7 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years. The plan failed to reach the critical threshold of 60 votes in the Senate.

Coburn, also appearing on the program Sunday morning, said he sees failure in the order of what happened in Greece if Congress and the president cannot reach agreement on the deficit.

"Then fact is if you go back and look at two years ago at what they were writing about Greece. it's exactly what they're writing about us today," Coburn said.

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