Quote du Jour

"Like a retreating army, Republicans are tearing up railroad track and planting legislative land mines to make it harder for Democrats to govern when they take power in Congress next month.

"Already, the Republican leadership has moved to saddle the new Democratic majority with responsibility for resolving $463 billion in spending bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. And the departing chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Bill Thomas (R., Calif.), has been demanding that the Democrat-crafted 2008 budget absorb most of the $13 billion in costs incurred from a decision now to protect physician reimbursements under Medicare, the federal health-care program for the elderly and disabled.

"The unstated goal is to disrupt the Democratic agenda and make it harder for the new majority to meet its promise to reinstitute 'pay-as-you-go' budget rules, under which new costs or tax cuts must be offset to protect the deficit from growing."

-- WALL STREET JOURNAL