I’m talking about the fiscal cliff discussion — which I’ve decided to call the fiscal con, from a renaming effort that NPR had for this thing. The WaPo and Pew took a poll asking people what their expectations are on the outcome and who would be at fault for the failure of any talks. By a margin of 51% to 38%, those polled do not think that the fiscal cliff discussions will be productive. And if they fail, the folks polled will point the finger at the GOP 53% to 29% (10% blaming both sides equally). Even better — majorities seem to understand what is at stake for themselves and for the country.
This poll didn’t ask people about potential solutions, but this certainly looks like the GOP should be quite ripe to be pushed into some reasonableness here. And it looks like the Democrats shouldn’t have to compromise much for a deal. President Obama met with his progressive and labor supporters today to talk about this, and the consensus seems to be that the commitment to hold to letting tax cuts expire for all income over $250K is firm. I haven’t seen anything else useful out of this meeting. We’ll see what the meetings the rest of the week bring, but while the President keeps talking about a balanced deal, it looks to me that the people who should be most motivated for a “balanced” narrative ought to be the GOP.