small minority

President Obama held a press conference today to say that the Republicans are holding up progress on the fiscal cliff. The GOP is pissed.

From NYT:

Mr. Obama used the occasion to warn Republicans that he would continue to press for more tax increases even beyond whatever may be included in a deal now. “If Republicans think I will finish the job of deficit reduction through spending cuts alone,” he said, then “they’ve got another think coming. That’s not how it’s going to work.”

Republicans responded to the president’s speech angrily, accusing him of “moving the goal posts” just when a deal was in reach. They said that they knew that the two sides still had to agree on how to suspend the automatic spending cuts, but that they generally agreed that such a suspension would be offset, at least partially, by spending cuts elsewhere. Instead, the president said any deal to turn off the so-called sequester had to be financed by tax increases and spending cuts in concert.

I don’t think that we are going to get anything done. Nothing. This compromise would cause the Tea Party GOP to vomit. When you simply don’t believe in government then the problem isn’t how the government is spending the money. The problem is funding the government at all. This is the problem. So, I don’t think that even a small minority of Republicans will sign on to any compromise. Mitch McConnell is simply going through the motions. He knows this. Nothing will be done until after the markets open and they begin to tank.