Taxpayer relief makes it out of Congress:
President Barack Obama plans to sign an $858 billion tax deal into law on Friday afternoon.
The House of Representatives gave final approval late Thursday night to the deal, negotiated by the White House and top Senate Republicans. The final vote of 277-148 had almost equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans in support.
And the spending bill fails:
Senate Democrats abruptly abandoned an omnibus budget bill for the coming year, pushing major spending decisions into the next Congress and giving Republicans immense new leverage to confront President Barack Obama priorities.
For those of us who have been arguing for years that the debt and deficit problems come from too much spending rather than too little revenue, this is about as good as it gets. It doesn't mean government will start shrinking with the next Congress, but it does show that the right attitude might be around long enough to start taking hold. Hooray for the tea-party movement.
