"It ends when certain very powerful people and institutions decide they can no longer do business with these people,"
From those Commies over at The Economist.
The text of the Business Roundtable's letter from December 11th, supporting both tax hikes and spending cuts, is here. The day after the Roundtable sent this letter, Dave Camp, the Republican chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, dismissed this group of CEOs representing $7.3 trillion in annual revenues in insulting terms: "Big business may support raising tax rates on small businesses, but I do not." How Republicans could possibly be reconciled to any action on gun control, I don't know; but on the fiscal cliff, at this point it's clear who is standing in the way of the kind of deal corporate CEOs want. I can't see the GOP changing its mind on taxes because of any change of heart on the part of Republican voters, but at the point where Republican politics meet the policy preferences of American business, I could imagine a lot of action starting to happen soon.