The marvel of our representative democracy:
The [super]committee won’t even bother to hold votes on dueling proposals to show where they stand, as some originally thought. There’s little reason for Republicans to vote for new taxes, and Democrats to embrace entitlement cuts — if both plans are dead on arrival and step on their own political messages, sources say.
Those messages? Finger-pointing, framing, blame-laying, posturing, demagoguing, tub-thumping, bitching, moaning, and infantile braying. And that's just the warmup. For Republicans, then comes filibustering and propagandizing. And lying. Lots and lots of lying.
Anything but legislating. Or taxing.