The Obamunists don’t want a deal.
One little-noticed detail of the set-up is that the automatic cuts if the committee doesn’t agree don’t take effect until the fiscal year beginning Oct 2012.
So the committee fails in December, but the automatic cuts don’t take effect until about the time of the election.
Obama runs on the Republicans gutting government services and defense and throwing grandma off a cliff to hit about election time and refusing to raise taxes on the rich.
He’s taken the mountain of debt off the table as an issue, since the debt deal gets him past the election as far as that is concerned.
And THAT would be fascinating. Likely, too, since he's already blown through $300+ billion since that odious debt ceiling "deal" was passed. In 3 weeks' time; you do the math.