It isn't a shocker that the congressional "supercommittee" failed to come up with a big, bipartisan deficit reduction deal. It's disheartening nonetheless.

The panel threw in the towel Monday, having never come close to its goal of reducing federal deficits by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade. After two months of talks, the 12 committee members – evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans – barely budged from their hardened positions.

The big divide, of course, was and is taxes. Democrats say the rich should pay more as part of a package of tax increases and spending cuts. Republicans adamantly refuse, and counter that Democrats aren't willing to trim entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

In the short term, this stalemate sets up another ugly fight over extending long-term unemployment benefits and a payroll tax cut that is increasing take-home pay for most workers by about $1,000 a year. The debate over those measures, both set to expire Dec. 31, will likely be full of petty, pathetic partisanship. So much for holiday cheer.

The supercommittee's colossal failure also means a bigger brawl to come over the Bush-era tax cuts, which are to run out at the end of 2012. And unless Congress acts first, the deadlock will trigger $1.2 trillion in automatic, across-the-board spending cuts in defense and some domestic programs over the next decade, starting in January 2013. That would amount to about a 10 percent trim in the 2013 Pentagon budget and 8 percent in agriculture, education and environment.

Some want to block the defense cuts, but President Barack Obama vowed Monday to veto any attempt to scuttle the trigger cuts, unless Congress approves a balanced deficit reduction plan.

The utter inability of Congress to find common ground further undermines confidence in the economy. The stock markets nose-dived again Monday. If you remember, the supercommittee was created as part of the last-minute agreement in August to raise the nation's debt ceiling after that fiasco spooked markets around the world and led to the first-ever downgrade of U.S. Treasury bonds.

Polls suggest that most Americans are willing to accept some tax increases, primarily on the wealthy, along with spending cuts to get the nation on sound financial footing. But Republicans in particular are so locked into an inflexible anti-tax dogma that they can't even consider reasonable compromise.

It's difficult to imagine this impasse will be broken without a new crop in Congress. In selecting representatives in 2012, voters should focus on a key criteria – whether their candidate can move beyond partisanship and ideology on issues that demand resolution.

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