Good try....but no dice

Democrats, faced with losing control of the House of Representatives January 1st, hoped to push through a lot of bills dear to their liberal base in this lame duck session in order to strengthen their record for the 2012 elections.  I see that Republicans have checkmated this effort by stating, boldly and bluntly, that the two most important issues at the moment are preventing a tax increase January 1st when the Bush-era tax cuts expire, and funding the government (This year's funding ran out Sept 30, and the temporary funding extension that Congress voted runs out this Friday), and that Republican Senators will block all other legislation until the Senate deals with these two issues.

Frankly, I think the Republicans are right. These are the two most pressing issues right now. Congress, under the Democrats, has spent all year on other issues and failed to deal with these two fundamental issues, so I'm glad the Republicans are forcing their hand.  Of course the Democrats are furious at being outmaneuvered, but clearly they still haven't gotten the message from their mid-term drubbing at the polls.

Now the next question will be whether the Republicans are really serious about getting the economy going and cutting government expenditures, or whether that was just campaign talk.