POLL: Are You Surprised By Supercommittee's Failure?

The special congressional supercommittee tasked by President Barack Obama with finding more than a trillion in federal spending cuts gave up and admitted failure yesterday.

The result, after two months of negotiations, is that the country is now potentially facing $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts in January 2013 if another deal is not reached.

Failure, members of the committee said in a statement issued yesterday, was due to partisan differences.

“Despite our inability to bridge the committee’s significant differences, we end this process united in our belief that the nation’s fiscal crisis must be addressed and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve,” said the statement from Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “We remain hopeful that Congress can build on this committee’s work and can find a way to tackle this issue in a way that works for the American people and our economy.”

Are you surprised the supercommittee flubbed the deal? Were they doomed from the start? Let us know what you think by taking our poll.