Collective Conscious

So says Matt Ste­in­glass. Yet I think that’s exactly why these two years will be so excit­ing. There’s a lot that sim­ply has to be done in the next two years — namely, the Bush tax cuts (although this will prob­a­bly be done in the lame duck), annual appro­pri­a­tions, annual bud­gets, and debt-​​limit increases.

Ste­in­glass is prob­a­bly cor­rect to assert that almost noth­ing else will get done, but these bills cover all the cru­cial func­tions of gov­ern­ment. They force Repub­li­cans and Tea Partiers to make a stand on their anti-​​government agenda and, more likely than not, they will find that they pre­fer to be a minor­ity party than actu­ally be respon­si­ble for writ­ing these things. But for at least the next two years, they have to, and how they do it (or don’t do it) will be extremely interesting.

Of course, it will be totally invis­i­ble and inscrutable to the aver­age viewer. Polit­i­cally, that’s where the pres­i­dent comes in, but on the media side it will take care­ful observers to untan­gle the upcom­ing mess of com­mit­tee work (since appro­pri­a­tions doc­u­ments are, by and large, approved as-​​is on the floor).