Who is to blame for the failure of our glorious experiment in government engineering, the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction a.k.a. the supercommittee, to meet the public's desire for trillions of dollars in spending cuts and tax hikes that the public doesn't want? Our best guess is that it's the supercommittee that is to blame for the failure of the supercommittee. Others would disagree!

The congressional supercommittee, formally known as the The Joint Select Committee on Failure at Basic Task Execution, is a few days short of its deadline to produce a $1.2 trillion debt reduction plan and not likely to meet its deadline. Onward to the clumsy blame-shifting phase of the show!

A brave coalition of centrist senators defiantly took the stage today to save America, by asking for larger, more painful budget cuts to lower- and middle-class social programs in a horrible time of economic agony and uncertainty. Thirty-six of them, there were! Can you just feel the red, white and blue coursing through your veins?

A couple of months ago, the Senate's bipartisan "Gang of Six" that was formed to broker a passable deficit-reduction deal broke apart, after some members realized that six senators cannot simply craft their own deal in private and expect everyone in Congress to pass it. But as of today, the Gang has reformed, with President Obama's blessing! And they have a plan, which still may or may not pass the House of Representatives.

So what is it, America: Do you want federal budget cuts or not? Because this new WSJ/NBC poll does not prescribe much in the way of a path going forward: