From Ezra Klein’s This is why Obama can’t make a deal with Republicans:

My column this weekend is about the almost comically poor lines of communication between the White House and the Hill. The opening anecdote was drawn from a background briefing I attended with a respected Republican legislator who thought it would be a gamechanger for President Obama to say he’d be open to chained CPI — a policy that cuts Social Security benefits — as part of a budget deal.

The only problem? Obama has said he’s open to chained CPI as part of a budget deal. And this isn’t one of those times where the admission was in private, and we’re going off of news reports. It’s right there on his Web site. It’s literally in bold type. But key GOP legislators have no idea Obama’s made that concession.

There you have it.  Obama offers the opposition one of their must haves – and does it in plain sight for all to see – and they’re not even aware of it.  Willful ignorance is only part of the problem however.  If you read Klein’s entire piece you see that Republicans fundamentally don’t want to make deals.  On another blog, cogitamus sums up the difference between Democrats/liberals/technocrats and the Republican party:

Where we see problems in need of solutions – millions of people with no jobs and no jobs available for them, tens of millions of people without health insurance, millions of people working full time but still not having enough money to live on, crumbling infrastructure, millions of young people either not being able to afford college, or coming out saddled with unconscionable piles of debt, money in politics drowning out the voice of the people, millions headed to retirement age with 401(k)s without any money in them, people not having any sick days to take when they or their kids get sick so that they have to keep working anyway, you name it – they see stuff that they’re basically A-OK with.

That, fundamentally, is the problem.