Why is there no common sense? Instead of threatening with new taxes, why not just threaten to fire congress?

Actually, just fire every member of congress if a deal is not reached. That was the original point of the "sequestration", anyway... not to actually trim the budget, but as a threat ("incentive", if you will) to get congress to actually make things happen. Basically, taking the american public hostage! Well, we should have taken the damn lawmakers hostage...! I say next time congress wants to make sure an agreement is made, the consequences of not reaching a settlement should be auto-impeachment for the lot of them. We should be having new elections this spring, not new taxes...