They're baaack.

Our congressmen, that is. It is the 109th Congress and it's back in session.

It will be quite interesting to watch these guys operate this time around.

There are some pretty weighty issues to deal with. And at the risk of being accused of a lack of fairness, I must say the last thing a congressman wants to do is take a stand on a weighty issue.

But that's the dilemma into which the congressmen of the 109th have been thrust.

Do we make those tax cuts permanent? Do we expand that prescription drug benefit? How much do we spend on the war in Iraq? Do we reinvent Social Security? What about immigration and federal caps on medical lawsuits?

They've pretty much already written off any meaningful income tax reform for this session.

And the spending, my word, the spending.

I used to be critical of Bill Clinton because discretionary spending during his administration was running at an average annual growth rate of 2.4 percent a year.

I know, I know. Homeland Security and the Iraq war are costly. That's true, but those two things only account for 45 percent of the budget. The other 55 percent was spent on programs unrelated to homeland security and the war on terrorism.

These unrelated programs - the discretionary spending - are the ones that have grown by nearly 12 percent annually since 2001.

Basically, the budget process is a train wreck.

Congress is faced with long-term deficits, and the first baby boomers will start collecting Social Security checks in January 2008. That's just around the corner.

If the 109th doesn't get control of spending, we the people will face onerous tax increases, deep program cuts or both. Even worse is the likely effect that tax increases would have - a slowing economy, fewer jobs, lower incomes and higher prices.

The sinking dollar tends to complicate things, too. A weak dollar coupled with high deficits tends to stifle foreign investment.

Foreign investment is how we pay the interest on all that massive debt.

It's really not a pretty picture.

Comes now W with all his "political capital."

And capital he should have aplenty. Have you looked at a county-by-county red state/blue state map of the U.S. after the last election?

He now has a 10-seat majority in the Senate and a 30-seat majority in the House.

But I am not so sure this Congress will be easy going for him.

Frankly, there is lots of opposition within his own party. Especially when it comes to the budget.

You see, W is calling for deficit reductions by taking aim at domestic programs.

These are programs that politicians on both sides of the aisle hold dear.

It's the classic catch-22. Because of the deficit, there's not enough money to go around for all those favorite domestic programs. But to reduce the deficit you must cut the domestic programs.

Think Congress is going to go merrily along with W's plan to cut highway, education or energy programs?

It should be great column fodder as we go forward.

And speaking of column fodder, how about those congressional ethics rules?

There's an oxymoron for you - congressional ethics.

I wrote not long about about the hubris of the Republicans who loosened up the ethics a few weeks back, before the holiday recess.

One provision stated that if you get indicted, you have to give up leadership positions.

Well, Tom DeLay, majority leader, was fixin' to get indicted down there in Texas, so the GOP changed the rules to say he could keep his post.

Of course DeLay paid no mind to the fact that it was he who spearheaded the effort to get that very rule passed back in 1993. More stringent ethics rules were needed then to rein in those power-hungry Democrats, you see.

The GOP also tried to kill a rule that lets the House ethics committee reprimand lawmakers for conduct that doesn't break any specific rules, but looks really bad or questionable nonetheless.

(DeLay has been reprimanded three times, by the way.)

Ah, but all's well that ends well.

As members of Congress got back together this week, the GOP leadership dropped both of those proposed changes.

They said it was because talk about the rules changes was distracting them from more important work.

Yeah. OK.

More likely it was because of the backlash from other Republican members of Congress, political watchdog groups and conservative columnists.

But whatever the reason, I'm glad it came out right.

I'm sure at some point members of Congress will become ethically challenged once again.

But for now, hopefully, they can put the debate over ethics rules behind them and move on to more urgent matters. [[In-content Ad]]