"This week, the party's over.

"We've been living on borrowed money for too long. No, we're not facing another 2009 financial meltdown. Banks and financial institutions are in much better shape now than they were then. But the government's not.

"Our national debt is massive -- at $31 trillion it's now bigger than our annual GDP. We used to laugh at countries that were caught in that bind.

"Of course, there's a reason this happened. The extraordinary moment of turning off the economy because of the pandemic created a unique crisis in which we had to spend a lot. But it was expected to be a temporary safety net for individuals and companies.

"Instead, the Biden administration doubled down on the spending to expand government in a way that is unsustainable -- way beyond what our private economy can maintain. That's led to our high inflation and rising interest rates, both of which are causing tremendous pain for families and businesses."

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"What do GOP fiscal hawks hate more, a mammoth spending bill or the threat of canceling their holiday flights because of a massive storm? The Senate might soon find out.

Congress is hustling to pass a $1.7 trillion year-end spending package before leaving Washington for the year, with government funding set to run out Friday. The Senate took its first procedural vote Tuesday after the sprawling bill's text was released in the pre-dawn hours -- but to meet its end-of-week deadline, much less finish work days early, the chamber will need buy-in from all 100 senators.

That includes a passel of conservatives, including one senator who has slammed the fast-paced spending debate as 'legislative barbarism' and 'extortion.' Republican leaders are hoping the proverbial scent of jet fumes calling senators home, combined with the threat of a snowstorm that will blanket half the country, will help deliver a holiday miracle: final passage of the bill as soon as Wednesday."

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"There are only 15 legislative Looting Days left until a new Congress takes office. Voters last month sent Washington a 'cease-and-desist' order by giving Republicans control of the House of Representatives. But congressional Democrats are racing to spend almost $2 trillion more before the clock runs out.

"President Joe Biden spent recent months portraying Republicans as a dire threat to the survival of democracy. But the biggest enemies of democracy nowadays are on Capitol Hill. ...

"'Train wreck' is the kindest term for what Congress will likely produce. The Washington Post reported last week that 'congressional leaders have again waited until deep into the holiday season to assemble must-pass bills -- and they've used them as legislative Christmas trees, attaching unrelated measures small and large.'

"The secret omnibus bill could be made public any day now. House Republicans were effectively excluded from the negotiations for this monstrosity. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) condemned the 'corrupt tactics' behind this bill.

"Democrats are addicted to spending money the government doesn't have to enact programs American citizens don't want. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget warned that Congress' year-end spending rush could enact changes that 'add up to $4.5 trillion to 10-year deficits in a worst-case scenerio.'"

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"A future of nuclear fusion powering the country with limitless, carbon-free energy is promising but remains far out of sight, despite U.S. officials and scientists hailing what they described as a 'breakthrough' in fusion technology, according to experts.

"'There's a lot of hype and misreporting around this announcement,' said Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. 'It's more an incremental advance than a breakthrough. Nuclear fusion research is very expensive and requires incredible amounts of energy and technology. This latest technological development is a significant step forward, but we're many decades away from having fusion power for powering our homes.' ...

"Specifically, the latest fusion experiment conducted last week and unveiled on Tuesday put in 2.05 megajoules of energy and resulted in an output of 3.15 megajoules, meaning there was a net gain of energy from the reaction, officials said.

"However, this calculation didn't account for the significant amount of energy needed to power the lasers operating the fusion reactor. In this case, 300 megajoules needed to be drawn from the electrical grid to operate the lasers, according to Lawrence Livermore officials who spoke at the press conference.

"In other words, even though the fusion reaction itself produced more energy than it consumed, the reaction couldn't have been conducted in the first place without exponentially more power from what could be called the experi ment's wall-socket energy."

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"Labor unions and labor-backed groups are urging the lame-duck Congress to pass a bill that would devastate the working men and women they claim to represent. They want to raise the U.S. corporate tax rate to one of the highest levels in the world.

"With economic experts forecasting a major economic slowdown next year, raising the corporate tax rate would have a disastrous effect on our economy, making the coming downturn deeper and longer lasting. Study after study has shown that a higher corporate tax rate would be harmful to economic growth, leading to lower wages, higher prices, and the loss of millions of jobs.

"A Federal Reserve Board study found that a corporate tax rate increase would be 'uniformly harmful to workers,' reducing wages by thousands of dollars a year. The tax increase would also hit millions of small businesses struggling to survive. It would put American companies at a competitive disadvantage with their foreign competitors and drive them to relocate operations and jobs overseas."

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"As the year winds down, the border is about to break wide open. In less than a week, the Biden administration's last remaining tool to control illegal immigration, left over from the Trump administration, will be taken away.

"Title 42, the public-health order invoked by President Trump during the pandemic that allowed immigration officials to quickly expel most migrants caught crossing the border illegally, will end on Dec. 21 by order of a federal judge.

"Once Title 42 is gone, federal agencies at the border will have no choice but to process and release nearly every illegal border-crosser. It will represent a full return to the Obama-era 'catch-and-release' policy. Border Patrol estimates they could see as many as 14,000 arrests per day in the coming weeks, which would totally overwhelm the border."

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"What a happy coincidence for Democrats that, hours before the alleged crypto criminal Sam Bankman-Fried was due to testify before the House Financial Services Committee, he was arrested in the Bahamas. That meant that SBF, the second-biggest Democratic donor of the 2022 cycle -- behind 92-year-old George Soros -- was able to evade questioning from Republican House members.

"Bankman-Fried helped to bankroll President Joe Biden's 2020 campaign and threw nearly $40 million behind Democratic candidates this year, and we have a feeling that questioning from Republican lawmakers would've been embarrassing for the Democratic Party. His testimony under oath would also have, presumably, been a boon for prosecutors who decided to arrest him on Monday instead. The timing is puzzling."

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"Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) hopes to be speaker when Republicans return with the House majority in January. And he already has the support of the vast majority of his GOP colleagues, 188 of them. But he needs 30 more to get to the 218 that will overcome Democratic opposition.

"Members of the House Freedom Caucus are withholding their support and demanding various procedural changes in exchange for their votes. There is a neat and desirable solution, for many of the Freedom Caucus's demands would return the House to a better way of operating. Thus, McCarthy can win the backing of his colleagues and, at the same time, seize an historic opportunity to make at least one side of Congress function better.

"The Founding Fathers always intended the House to be the federal institution closest to the people. But for far too long, leaders of both parties have consolidated power in the speaker's office. Now, McCarthy can make it the 'People's House' again.

"The Freedom Caucus identified several changes to both House and Republican Conference rules that would, as they put it, 'give all Members the power to fix Washington' and 'hold our own party leaders accountable.'"

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"The latest Twitter disclosures have raised potential legal liability for Twitter and its executives. No one appears more at risk than Twitter's former CEO Jack Dorsey

"It is an ironic turn of events since Dorsey supported the takeover by Elon Musk and has called for all files to be released without filtering. Dorsey has the feel of a 'designated degendant,' someone who was pushed forward by others to take any legal hit.

"On its face, Dorsey has vulnerability after the latest release. He was repeatedly asked by members of Congress about censoring and shadow-banning, which has now been confirmed in these files."

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"Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is changing her party affiliation to independent, delivering a jolt to Democrats' narrow majority and Washington along with it.

"In a 45-minute interview, the first-term senator told POLITICO that she will not caucus with Republicans and suggested that she intends to vote the same way she has for four years in the Senate. 'Nothing will change about my values or my behavior,' she said.

"Provided that Sinema sticks to that vow, Democrats will still have a workable Senate majority in the next Congress, though it will not exactly be the neat and tidy 51 seats they assumed. They're expected to also have the votes to control Senate committees. And Sinema's move means Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) -- a pivotal swing vote in the 50-50 chamber the past two years -- will hold onto some but not all of his outsized influence in the Democratic caucus.

"Sinema would not address whether she will run for reelection in 2024, and informed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of her decision on Thursday.

"'I don't anticipate that anything will change about the Senate structure,' Sinema said, adding that some of the exact mechanics of how her switch affects the chamber is 'a question for Chuck Schumer ... I intend to show up to work, do the same work that I always do. I just intend to show up to work as an independent.'

"She said her closely held decision to leave the Democratic Party reflects that she's 'never really fit into a box of any political party' -- a description she said also applies to her fiercely independent state and millions of unaffiliated voters across the country."

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