Both sides are going to posture and blame the other side for being obstructionists. Neither side is going to suggest compromises that the other side finds reasonable. Obama is going to be no better at that at the end of 2012 than he has been during the previous four years as his idea of compromise has always been "My socialist way or the highway."
But I am fairly certain that after all the posturing and grandstanding and finger pointing is said and done a last minute compromise of some sort will be rammed through the House of Representatives . . . and then the Senate will have to play with it a bit as well.
What will things look like in the end? It's anyone's guess but I suspect that Obama will get his meaningless increase of taxes on people earning $250,000 and above. But then again the Republicans will probably get something in return that they want . . . and Obama and the Democratic leadership will not want to give it. But what will those Republican leaders want? I can't even begin to guess. But I doubt that they will get more than one big gimme in this deal.
Why will some sort of compromise deal be reached just in the nick of time? Because neither side will want to go down in history of shoving the nation over that cliff and kicking off a major new recession while hitting all citizens very had indeed in their pocket books.
So there will be a great deal of posturing with bungee cords attacked to ankles, but it's highly unlikely that anyone will ultimately go splat . . . nor the nation itself for that matter.
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