Unfortunately, "No taxes, all spending cuts" is the reality of Obama's attempts at a bipartisan deal with Republicans over the deficit.
With the SuperCommittee finally dead, a long view of this multi-phased attempt at bi-partisanship by the President can come into focus.
The reality is that this was a near total failure, and we in the Democratic base should do our best to absorb and learn from it.
Phase I: The December 2010 tax deal.
With historic majorities, Obama chose to engage in negotiations with the opposition over tax and budgetary policy that could have been passed by majority vote.
A process of "reconciliation" requires only 51 votes in the Senate and is available for legislation that is not neutral with respect to the budget. Reconciliation was the procedure by which the Bush tax cuts were originally enacted in '01 and '03.
The end result of foregoing this route and optionally engaging with the GOP was an agreement that extended the Bush tax cuts for two years. In return, Obama got a 1 year extension of unemployment insurance, a 1 year payroll tax cut, and vague promises of eventual revenue increases.
Phase II: The Debt Ceiling Negotiations
No President had negotiated before to raise the debt ceiling. Surprisingly, leaked Democratic proposals sounded like Republican fantasies. 4 trillion deficit reduction packages with 3:1 or even 4:1 spending-cut-to-tax-increase ratios were floated by the Obama admin. These proposals also included significant cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
Such overtures were nevertheless rebuffed by the GOP, which managed to secure a minimum 2.1 - 2.4 trillion package with guarantees of $1 in spending cuts for every $ of debt ceiling increase.
Tax increases were no part of this deal. As Pelosi put it at the time of the debt ceiling vote, "Not one red cent will come from the wealthiest Americans to cut the deficit."
Phase III: The Super Committee
Having agreed to over $900 billion in initial spending cuts during the debt ceiling negotiations, a Super Committee was now tasked to specify at least 1.2 trillion in further deficit reduction before Thanksgiving. Again, Democrats offered conservative fantasies of 3:1 spending-cut-to-tax-increase proposals that also included significant cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
And again Democrats were rebuffed by the GOP. If so-called "triggers" turn out to have any teeth, the failure of this committee will force 1.2 trillion in spending cuts that are evenly divided between non-defense and defense spending.
Phase IV: Realizing Bipartisanship = Getting Hosed
Beginning with a process of optionally including Republicans in negotations when Democrats had historic majorities, the end result of this attempt to strike a bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction is a significant failure - all spending cuts and no tax increases.
"Reaching across the aisle", "bipartisanship", etc. might sound fine in theory, but in practice they mean capitulating to an opposition that has no interest in cooperating or compromising. The sooner a significant majority in the Democratic base treats these concepts as dirty words, as we should after this painful and year-long demonstration, the better chance we have of pressuring our party leadership not to embark on similar paths to failure.