Just a day after Al Franken finally got his ticket to become the 60th member of the Senate Democratic caucus, Republican hopes for reversing the trend next year were dealt another setback when former New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu decided he won't try for a comeback next year. Sununu, who lost to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen in 2008, was considered the GOP's best hope for holding onto the seat of Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, who plans to retire rather than seek reelection.

Now that Senate Democrats have finally hit the magic number of 60 with Al Franken's election in Minnesota, they'll be expected to start producing big time for the White House and the party.  But doing so will depend on whether Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, and his assistant, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, can keep all 60 together when the pressure is on. Each must be packing extra Mylanta. There'll be some heartburn, for sure.

You're going to hear a lot in the coming weeks about passing a consumption tax to help foot the bill for health care reform. It's going to sound like a pretty live option because it would raise a lot of money.

 

But don't believe a word of it. Whatever shape it might come in, whether it's a value-added tax, national sales tax, or something else, it's a non-starter. That's not a value judgment on a consumption tax. It's just a statement of political reality.

 

With lawmakers focused on who's too big to fail, what's happening to the farm subsidies seems too little for Congress to notice. But taxpayers may want to pay more attention.

 

The authors of the 2008 farm bill assured everyone they'd tightened limits on payments to the largest farms. President Obama pledged the same, and declared he'd slice a half billion dollars a year off crop insurance companies' take from the Department of Agriculture. But that's not what's happening. Far from it.

 

It's a glimpse of what's ahead.

 

There was a time when the chairman of the Federal Reserve would be grilled by Congress over interest rates being too high, or too low, or whether tax increases should be a part of deficit reduction -- in other words, criticism and debate over the Fed's critical tasks involving monetary and fiscal policy.