Feeling Depressed

New Democratic congress, massively unpopular president, total surrender on budget negotiations. Why not?

The agreement signaled that congressional Democrats are ready to give in to many of the White House's demands as they try to finish the session before they break for Christmas -- a political victory for the president, who has refused to compromise on the spending measures.

The whole thing actually gets more depressing in the details. But to make a long story short, a combination of Senate filibusters, White House veto threats, and Democratic unwillingness to push the envelop of confrontation, has the Republican minority getting its way on overall domestic spending levels, on war funding, on AMT offsets, and basically on everything else.