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I tend to disagree with this point. There are at least a half dozen folks on this panel that either have a history of working on big deals, or they sorta grew into that role in this process. Max Baucus, Rob Portman, Dave Camp, John Kerry, Chris Van Hollen -- that was a core group of folks that are serious about legislating. Or, in Kerry's case, have clearly grown into the role during these talks, despite this not being his area of expertise (that being foreign affairs). There was a core here that should have been able to get this done.

Undoing the triggers is not as easy as McCain and others make it out to be. Ezra Klein eloquently made this point last week. This would require bipartisan cooperation and consultation -- have you seen much of that lately?

Basically, to undo the Pentagon cuts would lead to a downgrade by Moodys, etc, because they have factored in a full $1.2 trillion in savings. If you take away military cuts, then you're left with half a loaf -- boom, downgrade. The other option is to replace the military cuts with other cuts. Um, does anyone really think Obama and Democrats will let domestic programs and entitlements to get cut even deeper? Not gonna happen.

A year from now, we'll be back right where we are today.

Why would you want Evan Bayh on this ticket? If Bayh really wanted to fight these fights, he could have stayed in the Senate, where he had a very safe seat. He gave that up, at a very young age.

What's also worth noting is that the idea of needing more centrists is a bit overblown. The great deals of the last 30 years rarely involved centrist leadership. Instead, what it involved were 2 really big personalities on opposite sides, coming together to fight and push and shove for several months of talks, then at the end they settled the matter via a compromise. Think Dole and Moynihan in '83 on Social Security. Clinton and Gingrich on welfare. Bill Bradley, Packwood and Jack Kemp on tax simplification in '86. More recently, Teddy Kennedy and John Boehner wrote the No Child Left Behind Law.

What's missing these days are the fierce partisans who, despite all the differences, are willing to compromise at the last moment.

The American people, by and large, blame everyone. In the last Wash Post/ABC poll, 18% of Democrats approved of Congress; 13% of Republicans. And, last and least, independents gave Congress a 12% approval.

I assume this outcome will only further those trendlines.

You're not necessarily wrong. How's that for an answer?!?! The reality is those cuts will happen, unless somehow they can agree how to turn off the sequester.

The biggest concern is from an institutional perspective. This committee was given magical powers, by congressional standards. They produce something by Wednesday night, bam, it would go straight to the House and Senate floors by Christmas. No filibuster, no amendments. Bam, votes. No committee made up of congresmen has ever had that power. Nor is it likely that any committee will be granted that power again.

And these folks blew it. This was a huge opportunity, that's what was lost here. This Congress can only govern under chaos and crisis. A simple deadline isn't enough anymore. Now, it's unclear how the heck this fiscal quagmire is going to get resolved. And this group had an amazing chance to get something really big done.

There's a real dispute here on the Grover effect. It's more subtle than Democrats make it out to be, I think. Yes, his "Pledge" is powerful, but it's not as if Grover was standing outside these meetings waving copies of the pledge at the Republicans. I don't think the Rs on the panel necessarily feared him.

They feared the wrath of angry Republican primary voters more than Grover.

I think we should just say it this way: Bruce Springsteen begins a new world tour in May (greatest news ever!). It's unclear how deep into 2013 Bruce will be playing, but the chances of Bruce finishing the world tour before Congress approves a sweeping debt plan? Pretty good.

If the president was allowed to live on the Upper East Side, and only commute to DC once a month, I think Bloomberg would run. Otherwise, he wants nothing more than to be mayor!

Yeah, you're right. I think this point is just absurd and ridiculous. This is a big thing among folks calling it "moral equivalence" (Fallows, Ornstein) and others calling it the "cult of balance" (Krugman).

It's just stupid. If you want someone to tell you that Republicans stink, read opinion pages. Read blogs. Also, the underlying sentiment on the left is that this is the real reason why things went wrong in 2010: That the mainstream media is to blame. Sorry, I think that's the sorta head-in-sand outlook that leads to longer term problems for a movement.

Greg is a fine writer. He's an opinion writer, in the opinion section of the web site. I encourage you to keep reading him. And I encourage you to keep reading the news coverage, which should always strive to present both sides of the story. If you really don't want to hear anything about the other side of the story, I really do encourage you to stop reading the news section.

Technically, most of them gave up last week. There is a meeting happening now in John Kerry's Senate office. A few of the supers are in there. This is the last gasp. Few people expect anything out of it.

The federal workforce is a winner and loser in this. It's a short-term win, because one of the ways to enhance revenue that had been essentially agreed to was requiring federal workers to contribute more to their pension plan. So, for now, that won't happen. A short-term win. However, over the long term, the trigger means spending cuts to federal agencies, on top of the already agreed upon $900-plus billion from the Aug. 2 deal. This means fewer federal workers over the next decade. Long-term loss.

Obama tried the golf thing, with Boehner, in June. It didn't work. Also, it's just worth noting: Obama is not a schmoozer. It' s not in his DNA. He just isn't that guy. So, he's never going to be that guy.

The Pentagon is already looking at something like $500 billion in reduced spending over the next decade, based on Obama's budgets. If the sequester goes through, there's another roughly $500 billion that gets cut over the next 10 years. A lotta folks say that such a cut is unsustainable.

However, the Iraq war is ending next month, and the draw down from AfPak begins next summer. The planning for these cuts begins immediately, so folks like Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon are adamant in saying the sequester must be turned off immediately. We'll see if they're successful.

The insiders on the Hill say that, over the past year, Democrats have gone farther in their offers to curb long-term debt. Obama's offer to Boehner was stunning to many liberals. Sacred cows were put on the table, such as inflation index on Social Security and moving Medicare eligibility age.

Of course, the Dems on the supercommittee didn't really go any farther than Obama went. They essentially went with where he was back in July. And, according to insiders, it's not clear that there was ever any unanimity on the supercommittee among Democrats about their offers. Which made talks somewhat difficult.

Republicans have wandered into the revenue area, but the folks on the supercommittee probably didn't go as far as where Boehner was in the summer. Their main complaint was that they felt there wasn't coherence from Democrats, in terms of where they were willing to go.

I hope this helps.

I'll say this, if the entirety of Bush tax cuts expired, and the sequestration remained in tact, that would go a looooooong way toward settling long-term fiscal problems. The question is whether such tax hikes and gov't spending cuts would shock the economy back into a recession -- at least that's what I learned about Keynes in Econ 101. If such moves (or non-moves) sent the economy back into recession, then you'd have more unemployment, more people on food stamps, lower tax receipts, more people on Medicaid -- and the very actions meant to shore up the nation's finances would be bad.

I really want a show in Spain. Never been to Spain, I need an excuse to go. A Springsteen show there, awwww, that would be great.

Yes, this is the central question, isn't it? To some degree, voters have to come to grips with what they want, decisively. Too many voters want a big deal -- but also don't want to raise taxes. This is reflected in about 10 Republicans who signed on to the "go big" coaltion, but also signed letters telling the supercommittee to not raise taxes. And a few Democrats also endorsed "go big", but then attended events with Social Security/Medicare advocates saying 'don't touch our benefits."

That sort of bipolar-ness is what's at the heart of this fiscal mess.

OK, folks, I've gotta go. Time to find out if there's actually any last-minute movement. I'm gonna leave with the thoughts of this midwestern small business owner. I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving weekend. I personally can't wait to see my family up in suburban Philly.

Best holiday of the year. Hope you all it enjoy it with you and yours. See you soon. -- pk