This Week in Congress

This week's crown jewel in the House will be H.R. 2560, the "Cut, Cap, and Balance Act," a bill taking the horrors of the earlier-passed Ryan budget and combining it with the sort of terrible and virtually irreversible ideas that have more or less ruined California's ability to govern itself, most notably the "conservative" pipe dream of supermajority requirements for tax increases.

The Senate picture, as always, is less clear. All we've got to go on at the moment is that they're cleared for action on the MilCon appropriations bill. But now that they're past the filibusters to get onto the bill, they'll likely need the bulk of the week to work through it and dispense with amendments. After a couple days on that task, we'll get some sign as to whether or not they'll have to play the cloture game all over again, this time to bring the bill to a vote on final passage. We still don't know for sure whether Rand Paul's been placated by having the last week to "debate" the debt and budget issues, not that anyone believes there's anything that would satisfy him, anyway. Or that he'd recognize it even if there were.