They pretty much just have to suck it up and get a deal done by the end of this month period. The angry backlash no matter how this election goes multiplied the effects of sequestration would be very bad.

Some of the smartest people in America live in the DC area, I've often wondered how they feel about the disingenous hogwash that is American politics. It's one thing to kick a can down the road, it's another thing to do this. I do sort of wonder if Congress has a grasp over the gravity of this situation. It doesn't matter who is to blame here if Sequistration happens, they are all toast.

This is getting close and is gonna wreck the middle class in my area. So much for eating at restaurants and buying new clothes.

I understand that the definition of 'middle class' varies based on the cost of living in a given area. Is the cost of living in Northern Virginia that high?

I get that, I just recently was reading about a breakdown of cost of living in different areas where folks were complaining that 250k a year would make them middle class in San Francisco. I understand that real estate in my neighboring county is expensive and the like, but I cannot accept that 250k makes one middle class. Moreover, in most instances moving to a neighboring locale means the cost of living decreases while still being commutable. Choices. How do they work!?

The frenzied partisan horse-trading has glossed over what is arguably the central issue of any debate over long-term fiscal policy: the kind of role we expect the government to play in the nation’s future. Not only have our political leaders failed to lay out a vision of what they hope the budget will achieve, they are pulling the wool over Americans’ eyes about the kind of budget we are about to get.

The truth is that both the president and House Republicans have agreed to shrink a critical part of the government to its smallest in at least half a century. This is regardless of which trillion-dollar proposal gains the upper hand.

Consider the president’s budget, which by law must include projections of taxing and spending over the next decade. Loath to raise taxes on the middle class yet unwilling to cut deeply into the budgets for Social Security or Medicare, the president and his advisers proposed cutting the discretionary part of the budget devoted to everything except defense and other security agencies to 1.7 percent of economic output by 2022, down from 3.1 percent last year.

This is not irrelevant spending. It accounts for every government expenditure except entitlements, security and interest. It pays subsidies for higher education and housing assistance for the poor. It finances the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. It pays for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and training programs for unemployed workers. Without such spending, the government becomes little more than a heavily armed pension plan with a health insurer on the side.

Is it too late to recall everybody??

Bet that whole southern secession thing from a few years back is looking pretty good now, eh?

I've never opposed it

Don't blame the members of Congress for this. They are reflecting the voices of the constituencies that elected them. Blame them, and the voters who stay home and help these guys get elected (and the state legislatures that gerrymandered a few key states and the state constitutions that let it happen) Unless I've missed some new data on this, I suspect every person getting in the way of a deal has fairly strong support of their voting constituency.

This whole process speaks volumes about what's wrong with our political system right now, but I don't think it's the politicians. Many may in fact be terrible, but they are terrible because our process is electing terrible leaders and giving them power they can't responsibly wield. This is an institutional and structural issue.