海角大神

The least popular Congress in memory is back.聽 I, personally, am thrilled.

After a year in which lawmakers did almost nothing besides聽(barely) keeping the government running, this session promises hardly more. 聽Tax policy will be at the center of much of the partisan squabbling, but it is hard to imagine Congress achieving聽more than a temporary truce in its ongoing battle over last year鈥檚 unfinished business.

That skirmishing聽starts with聽the 2011 payroll tax cut which, after a bruising battle last December, Congress extended only to the end of February. It also includes about four dozen other temporary tax cuts that expired last December 31. On the spending side, lawmakers must resolve controversies over extended unemployment benefits and Medicare physician payments鈥攖he so-called 鈥渄oc fix鈥濃�� that also must be addressed by March.聽

聽But all that will just be a warm up for what promises to be an awful year-end when lame-duck lawmakers will face their own version of an ugly triple witching hour.

They鈥檒l have to decide what to do about the expiring Bush-era tax cuts that were extended at the end of 2010 by President Obama and a Democratic Congress, as well as several of Obama鈥檚 own temporary tax cuts. And they need to extend the 鈥減atch鈥� that聽protects 25 million聽households from the Alternative Minimum Tax.

There鈥檚 more: They鈥檒l also have to figure out what to do about the automatic across-the-board spending cuts that are supposed to be the price of Congress鈥� failure last year to cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion. And聽Congress will have to vote yet again on a debt limit extension. All of this will likely happen in a lame-duck Congress that must negotiate with聽Obama, who either will have聽been reelected or will himself be on the way out the door.聽

My best guess is that the payroll tax cut ( as well as unemployment benefits and the doc fix) will get extended through the end of the year with surprisingly little聽controversy. Here鈥檚 why: There is a good chance that Mitt Romney will be well on his way to winning the GOP presidential nomination by the end of January. And Romney will let聽congressional Republicans know that聽the payroll tax flap needs to go away for the duration of聽his campaign.

This will not make the House GOP rank-and-file鈥攖he Braveheart Caucus鈥攙ery happy. But Hill Republicans suffered some pretty serious self-inflicted wounds late last year when they tried to explain why they were on the wrong side of what Democrats gleefully characterized 鈥渁 tax increase on 160 million working Americans.鈥� It is hard to imagine that, in the end, they鈥檒l buck both聽Romney and聽their own leadership by聽resisting a 10-month extension.

That leaves the musical question: How will Congress pay for an extension of the payroll tax cut as well as extended unemployment benefits?

Democrats seem to have abandoned their millionaire surtax and may be reverting to Obama鈥檚 original idea鈥攁 mix of cats-and-dogs tax hikes and some modest spending reductions. In the end, that will聽be good enough for the GOP leadership that, like Romney,聽wants the聽payroll tax mess to disappear. 聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽

And so it will鈥攗ntil after the election. Then, at the end of the year, the payroll tax, unemployment benefits, the doc fix, and the other temporary tax cuts will get tossed into聽the lame-duck聽fiscal salad along with the rest of the spoiled fruit that passes for policy these days. That鈥檚 when,聽after doing essentially nothing from February through December, Congress will have a food fight for the ages.