Congress is incapable of shame, empathy or goodwill toward men

bah, humbug... too bad the "war on christmas" didn't include a revival of the true spirit of the holidays - sharing - rather than an ideological war over words...

"An exercise in budget discipline," acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) called the agreement to save close to $40 billion in mandatory spending over the next five years. An exercise in self-delusion and the power of special interests is more like it. Start with the pretense that this Congress has buckled down to tackle the deficit. It hasn't. The $40 billion in budget cuts -- much of which doesn't consist of cuts at all but of money raised by things such as selling off the broadcast spectrum -- is, if Republican leaders get their way, to be followed by an even greater amount in tax cuts next year. So the 109th Congress will have added to the deficit, not trimmed it. Lawmakers got around their self-imposed spending caps by labeling expenses such as flu preparedness as emergency spending. Some discipline.

Moreover, the cuts themselves underscore the absence of congressional will to inflict real pain -- especially on those who write campaign checks. Gone in the final version were provisions that made cuts at the expense of insurance companies and drugmakers. When Ohio House Republicans threatened to walk over Medicare cuts that would hurt a home-state manufacturer of medical oxygen tanks, those were stripped out as well, The Post's Jonathan Weisman reported. Remaining, though smaller than originally envisioned, were cuts in Medicaid and child support enforcement.

the pre-conversion scrooge would be proud... meanwhile, the cratchit family is left to wonder what kind of holiday it's going to be without a tree, presents or figgy pudding...

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