Still No Winners in Shutdown Scenario

Americans remain split down the middle when it comes to who they would blame for a government shutdown, the Washington Post reports: 37 percent say it would be the Republicans' fault, and an equal percentage would blame the Democrats. That's about the same as a previous poll in late February showed. Other surveys also have indicated the public is divided when it comes to assessing blame for budgetary Armageddon.

The numbers mean that if a shutdown actually happens, everybody loses -- or at least there aren't any llikely winners. And that, for better or for worse, is probably as powerful an incentive as lawmakers will have to wrap up their work on this year's budget this week and get started on what will be an unimaginably messy process of setting spending levels for fiscal 2012.