Merry Christmas from Congress!

"We are all in store for a lump of coal next month. Once you cash it in, don't spend it all in one place."    

Ho, ho, ho! Are you ready folks? The jolly old fat man in the red suit will be here within a month, and does he ever have some surprises for you! Wait a minute Bird! You got that all wrong! Santa is suppose to bring presents, and not surprises! Yup - I know. This year it is going to be surprises.

Tomorrow is the 27th of November. Congress is back to (dare I use this word?) - work. And because they have been fiddle farting around all year, they will be "cramming for their finals". Their chances of getting everything done? About the same as the Gophers shutting out the Badgers yesterday in football. In other words, slim and none, and slim died.

This morning in the paper the now infamous tax plan was discussed. On how excited many of the people polled were about it. Using "Washington Speak", the tax plan it seems, has gone from historic to a "nothing burger". In fact, yesterday on one of the business shows, it was referred to as "a shell of what a good tax plan should have been." 

Why so many glum faces? President Trump said the tax plan was going to be a "Christmas present" for the American people. Here is why - when it first started to leak out that some middle class folks were going to get a tax increase (mostly in the high SALT states) instead of a cut, they were told (in so many words), to "take one for the Gipper". In other words, suffer in silence. The plan is for the greater good. That went over like stomach gas in church. I know that is how it was in this household.

Healthcare? Bye-bye healthcare fix. We are all stuck with ObamaCare for this year and if the truth be told, probably for years to come. It has drifted down in the Presidential/Congressional in-baskets from the top to somewhere on the floor. Why? I came under the "way too hard" category.

The budget? You mean the GFY 18 budget which right now is no more than the GFY 17 budget dressed up as a CR? That has less than a month of life left before we all turn into pumpkins. Since the debt ceiling is tied into the new budget, failure to pass a new budget will result in the government shutting down by New Year's Day. That is - unless we do what our law makers vowed to never do again - extend the CR.

Meanwhile back at the farm, we are still overly concerned with Russia, Russia, and Russia all over again. If that is not enough, we are going to go back in everyone's past to see if they ever said anything suggestive to someone of the opposite (or not) sex. Plus there is a long overdue "lynching party" going after the scurrilous Lois Lerner for what she did to weaponize the IRS. That is the agenda Congress is really on.

Here is our Christmas from Congress. Is it going to be Merry? Probably not. Will there be surprises? Probably yes. Will they be good surprises? Figure the odds. We are all in store for a lump of coal next month. Once you cash it in, don't spend it all in one place.