WASHINGTON – Sure the rich may have to pay more in taxes. But a “fiscal cliff” budget deal could mean pain for nearly everyone else, too: higher airline ticket prices, for example, an end to Saturday mail delivery, fewer food stamps and lower farm subsidies.

Each of those changes would make some powerful constituency angry. And even if approved, they would be only a drop in the bucket toward reducing future deficits by trillions of dollars.

Still, all are being looked to as an immediate “down payment” on a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, a looming $500 billion combination of automatic spending cuts and tax increases in the first nine months of next year alone.