(Undated) -- The longest serving U.S. Senator in Pennsylvania’s history isn’t impressed by the super-committee tasked with reducing the national debt. Former Senator Arlen Specter says the congressional super-committee is all but doomed. Specter, who served as both a Republican and Democrat, says the committee’s makeup ensures more gridlock over national spending. "The issue was not solved, it was an opportunity to restructure government spending," he says. "But instead, they just kicked the can down the road, created a super-committee equally divided between Democrats and Republicans and the prospects are, there’ll be another stalemate." Specter says Congress’s inability to raise the debt ceiling in a timely fashion is evidence enough that extremists have taken over both parties. He says the only remedy for that is a more activist electorate. Specter lost the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate to Joe Sestak in the 2010 primary.