Lame-duck Congress's first task: avoid a government shutdown

[steve2470]

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/1122/Lame-duck-Congress-s-first-task-avoid-a-government-shutdown

By Gail Rusell Chaddock, Staff writer / November 22, 2010

Washington

Of all the unfinished business on Capitol Hill, two issues – taxes and spending – are running up against tough deadlines when a lame-duck Congress returns next week, but the GOP surge at the polls on Nov. 2 is making consensus tougher on both issues.

To date, Congress has passed none of the 12 annual spending bills that keeps federal agencies functioning. Funding for fiscal year 2011 is set to run out on Dec. 3. In past years, the fix has been a single, massive spending bill, often pumped full of member projects derided as pork-barrel spending – a.k.a. earmarks – to grease passage.

But midterm elections changed both the partisan head count and the politics of spending in the lame-duck session as well.

For one, Republicans in the House and Senate say that voters will not tolerate another $1 trillion-plus spending bill loaded with pork and are threatening to block it. Moreover, the swearing in of Sen.-elect Mark Kirk (R) of Illinois on Nov. 29, will give Senate Republicans 42 seats in the lame-duck session, and Democrats will need to find at least two Republican votes to break a filibuster.

[Skittles]

1. repukes love their pork

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-vine/79222/why-the-republican-earmark-ban-doomed-fail

[Lasher]

2. Looks like the author just promoted Mitch McConnell to Senate Majority Leader

Good article though.