A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds nearly two-thirds of Americans say they favor a balanced deal to reduce the deficit — consisting of both higher tax rates and cuts to key entitlement programs.

Key findings: 65% say congressional leaders should make compromises to deal with the budget deficit, even if that means Democrats would need to accept targeted spending cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and that Republicans would need to accept targeted increases in tax rates.

That includes 68% of Democrats, 66% of Republicans and 56% of political independents who support this position.

Noam Scheiber says President Obama should let Republicans takes us over the fiscal cliff.

“They will see that they have been completely repudiated by the public in a way that even the election didn’t impress on them. It will, in other words, be as close as you get in politics to a total victory for one side. It will highlight the perils of following one’s base too slavishly, a lesson that will come in handy not just on future fiscal policy fights (there will in all likelihood still be a debt ceiling to raise next year), but, one can imagine, also on an issue like immigration. Which is to say, it’s only by forcing the GOP off the cliff that Obama will find the space he needs to govern.”

Andrew Sullivan: “Unless his strategy permanently embitters them and prompts them to use the debt ceiling – once again – as a cudgel.”

“The president and his allies have taken so many things off the table
the only thing left is the varnish.”

— Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by The Hill, on the fiscal cliff negotiations.

House Republican leaders warned their members they may have to return to Washington after Christmas, claiming that “serious differences” remained in negotiations to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” according to The Hill.

Meanwhile, TPM reports that Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) thinks House Speaker John Boehner may be waiting until he’s re-elected Speaker when he’ll have greater flexibility to cut a deal.

Said Van Hollen: “I’m getting increasingly concerned that one of the reasons the Speaker is deciding to, I think, string out these discussions is that he wants to wait til January 3 when the election for Speaker takes place and he’s concerned that any agreement he reaches if it violated the so-called Hastert Rule could undermine support for him in his caucus and make it more difficult on January 3.”

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds President Obama holds a substantial advantage over House Speaker John Boehner in handling budget negotiations to avoid the fiscal cliff: Nearly twice as many Americans approve of the president’s work on the issue so far as favor the speaker’s approach.

Meanwhile, a new Bloomberg poll finds Obama has won the public argument over taxes so decisively that almost half of Republicans now say he has an election mandate to raise rates on the rich.

New York Times: “With negotiations quickening on Tuesday to prevent a year-end fiscal crisis, White House officials once again are confronting a vexing question: Can Speaker John Boehner deliver enough Republican votes for whatever deficit-reduction plan he and President Obama might decide?”

“Eighteen months ago the White House was forced to answer in the negative after secret negotiations between the two leaders collapsed once word leaked of their tentative deal, with its proposed revenue increases. But once again, Mr. Obama must put his fate in Mr. Boehner’s hands on the issue that will help define the president’s second term, and his legacy.”