thank God for small favors

Thank God the 109th. Congress has ended. No other Congress in the History of our Country worked less than this Congress. No other Congress in History has done more damage to America then this Congress. The harm done to America may be in fact irreversible. The 10 year projected debt is $9 trillion and the occupation of Iraq will cost working class tax payers $2 trillion over the next ten years. Now the evil doers can go home for another month of vacation. They can spend part of the $165,000 plus benefits we gave them to screw us all over.

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer Dec.9, 2006
WASHINGTON - In its last hours of GOP control, Congress passed a raft of bills big and small, most significantly a sweeping bill reviving expired tax breaks, extending trade benefits for developing countries and protecting doctors from a big cut in Medicare payments.
The Senate cleared the bill for President Bush's signature early Saturday by a 79-9 vote. Final adjournment followed after the House and Senate cleared away a bevy of other legislation, including bills reauthorizing health research programs at the National Institute of Health and an overhaul of fisheries management. Speaker Dennis Hastert Rill, R-Ill., gaveled the House to a close for the last time about 3:15 a.m.; the Senate limped to a close about 4:40 a.m.
Republicans dumped an unfinished budget on the Democrats about to take power, with the Senate barely meeting a midnight deadline to pass a stopgap spending bill putting the government on autopilot until Feb. 15.
The failure to pass budget bills for domestic agencies, said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., amounted to "a blatant admission of abject failure by the most useless Congress in modern times."
The House easily passed the tax and Medicare provisions — along with a plan to open 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling. The vote was 367-45. It passed the trade legislation by a narrower 212-184 vote.
he sweeping votes reflected widespread bipartisan support for extending expired tax breaks, including the research and development tax credit for businesses, sales tax deductions for people in states without income taxes, the tax deduction on college tuition, a tax credit for hiring welfare recipients and others facing difficulties finding jobs and tax credits for alternative energy producers and purchases of solar energy equipment by homeowners and businesses.
All told, the tax cuts would cost $38 billion over five years.
Also driving the massive bill forward was an effort to prevent a 5 percent cut in Medicare payments to doctors from taking effect Jan. 1. The GOP-crafted solution to the problem was criticized as an accounting gimmick since it would double the cost of fixing the problem again next year.
On the rest of the budget, work remained unfinished on nine of 11 spending bills, requiring the stopgap funding bill to put 13 Cabinet departments on autopilot through Feb. 15 frozen at or slightly below current levels.
Democrats now face difficult choices and weeks of work on the leftover budget, which totals $463 billion and must be passed at Bush's strict budget limits.
"They are leaving us with a tremendous mess," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters. "We have alternatives, none of which are very good."
Democrats made good on a promise to block an automatic congressional pay raise until the minimum wage is increased. Under pressure from future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Reid, GOP leaders added language to the stopgap funding bill language stopping the pay raise slated for Jan. 1 until Feb. 16.
Now, if the pay raise goes into effect Feb. 16, members would lose about $320 of their anticipated $2,800 annual increase. That raise would be $3,300 if Congress acts to boost the cost-of-living allowances for all federal employees in 2007. Currently, rank-and-file members get $165,200.