In the public interest all negotiations between the President, the Senate, and the House to resolve the fiscal cliff should be public and televised on C-SPAN. All sides should be forced to make their priorities and positions known to the public. No more closed-door negotiations about the fate of our democracy.

Few things are more characteristic of business as usual in Washington, D.C., than closed doors. Nothing will do more to end business as usual than opening them to C-SPAN cameras.

With the "fiscal cliff" of sequestration approaching, now is the perfect time to establish a precedent: The bigger the deal, the more important it is that negotiations be done in public.

It took about 12 seconds after the 2012 campaign winners were declared for the maneuvering toward a "grand bargain" to begin among President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner.

Everybody professes to favor compromise, but without open negotiations there is no way to know who actually offers concrete compromises and who merely talks about them.

The only people who benefit from closed-door negotiations are the negotiators, not the public. Open the doors!

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