If President Obama and Speaker John Boehner discuss the fiscal cliff in a bar, could they come up with a deal?

Sure. It would be immediately shot down the moment they stepped back into the office, though.

That sounds like the first line of a joke:

The President and the Speaker walk into a bar….

The President says “make mine a double”
The Speaker says “make mine a half, because we need to reduce the deficit.

Considering that neither of them have the power to write and pass a law on their own, the exercise would be meaningless. Gotta worry about changing the minds of the other 513 people involved in that process. You know, the offices most of you were too lazy to bother voting for.

They sure could come up with a deal, just like you and I, if we were on opposite sides, could come up with any deal over drinks. They would also find the same difficulty in executing said deal.

@Seek_Kolinahr Mid-term elections’ where the real battle is. Something the Dems were not consistently energized on unlike the Repubs.

Not necessarily.