The House of Representatives is not in session this week, but many of the new chairmen of the major House committees are working on a plan that will quickly address the joblessness in America and the fact that Congresses of the past have spent this country into near-bankruptcy.

“Date night” on Capitol Hill went off without a hitch Tuesday night and the president’s State of the Union speech has been analyzed word for word by many.

“Health care repeal passes the House; Senate action unlikely.” This is the type of headline and news crawl that has been flying around D.C. ever since the vote of 245-189 was announced in the House of Representatives last Wednesday evening.

In one of his first official acts as U.S. senator, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., joined six other Republican senators on a fact-finding trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The idea is to see firsthand the effect of U.S. involvement in the region.

The Senate and the House convened the 112th Congress, passing and adopting mostly routine housekeeping measures and conducting leadership elections.

With his tenure in the U.S. Senate coming to a close, less than a year and a half after Gov. Charlie Crist appointed him to the seat vacated by Mel Martinez, Republican U.S. Sen. George LeMieux attempted to walk away from Washington with a flashy finish and hope for a curtain call -- increasing speculation that he intends to take on Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in 2012.

Elections have consequences. The consequences of the November 2010 elections -- and one might add the November 2009 elections in New Jersey and Virginia and the January 2010 special Senate election in Massachusetts -- became clear as lights shone over the snow at both ends of the Capitol on Thursday night.

While most Americans spent this weekend doing some last-minute Christmas shopping, the Senate spent Saturday and Sunday debating and voting on amendments to the START treaty, the DREAM Act and the repeal of the Defense Department's “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Members of Congress started out this week conducting symbolic political votes in order to pay back their Democratic base for their support in the past election. The Senate voted and failed to advance the following bills:

The Senate met in an unusual Saturday session to vote on two tax proposals doomed to fail from the start.

The Senate and House spent much of this week behind closed doors discussing the tax deductions that will expire in a few weeks. These “Bush tax cuts” that became law in 2001 and 2003 number in the 60s.