Third Time Winner

     I still think the process would go better if the light, heat, air-conditioning and water shut off in the Capitol and all the House and Senate office buildings any time the lack of a budget resulted in a fed.gov shutdown.  It would give Congress a positive incentive.

     Nevertheless, they did manage to cobble together a continuing resolution that keeps things running, while including almost none of the sparkly stuff Representatives, Senators and President-elect Trump wanted.  What was left out included plenty of items that will be fodder for opionators on both sides of the aisle, from children's cancer research funding to scrapping the debt limit.  The process exposed fracture lines in the GOP coalition, and they can be sure their pals across the aisle were taking notes.  Nevertheless, the CR received commanding majorities in both House (366 - 34 - 1, with all 34 noes from the Republicans) and Senate (85 - 11).  With 15 Republicans and 14 Democrats out in the House, Jasmine Crockett of Texas voted "present" and balanced the scales.  Likewise, the four missing or not-voting Senators were split.  The absent wouldn't have tipped the vote anyway.

     It's a hell of a way to run a railroad, but the feather-ruffling is at least evenly distributed, and they can all scamper off to holiday celebrations, secure in the knowledge that they managed to kick the can far enough down the road that the incoming Congress won't have to take it up again until springtime, at which point it will once again be a sudden and wholly unanticipated emergency, because Congress has the memory of a goldfish when it comes to the fiddlin' details of paying the piper, and they think you do, too.