Congress will be a bit busier this week after the new senator from West Virginia is sworn in as the 100th senator, filling the vacancy caused by the death of Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd.

Congress returns from its Fourth of July recess Monday with lots to do and not enough votes to accomplish the task, at least not right now.

Daniel Webster's dictionary defines the word "emergency" like this: "crisis, accident, unforeseen climax, clutch."

Congress will spend this final week before it breaks for a week to celebrate our nation’s birthday spending more money, adding to our exploding debt and hoping to help small businesses expand and be able to borrow money. We’ll see how well they do when this writer submits the Friday column.

This past week Congress played a tough game of tug-of-war between the House and the Senate. Here is how it all ended up.

Congress begins this week with leftovers on its plate that hardly anyone wants to deal with. These include the stalled tax extenders bill in the Senate and the war supplemental appropriations bill in the House.

Congress found itself mostly tied up in knots this week, as both the Senate and the House chambers tried to find votes for passage of bills that have huge price tags, and have no offsets or spending cuts to pay the cost of the bills.

Congress is back from its week-long Memorial Day break trying to spend more money without paying the bills.

Congress comes back to D.C. today after a weeklong break designed to allow lawmakers to celebrate Memorial Day in their home states and districts.

While dozens and dozens of members of Congress fled the country on congressional fact-finding trips, known as CODELS (Congressional Delegations), the majority returned to spend at least a little time with the folks who actually hired them to do their jobs. 

While Congress is enjoying a scheduled week-long recess, I thought it might be interesting to let the readers of Washington Week know about some congressional committee actions that occurred before Congress left town last Friday, May 28. These committee actions could eventually have a meaningful effect on our lives.

Congress attempted to tackle a month’s worth of legislation last week in an effort to unclog the legislative constipation that has been occurring since Easter. While their intentions were admirable, the outcome was a complete failure.

During this upcoming week in Congress, both the House and Senate are expected to consider bills that will cause the current debt limit to swell like Jiffy Pop popcorn on a hot burner.

The U.S. Senate hopes to conclude the month-long debate on the financial reform bill by week's end, even if the majority leader needs to force a procedural vote promoting a 60-vote threshold to bring debate to a close. This will not only limit the number of hours remaining for debate to 30 hours, but also keeps the remaining amendments germane and on subject.

By Friday of this week, the Senate Majority leader hopes to conclude debate on the financial reform bill. This bill has been pending for more than 3 weeks and major legislation is getting backed-up due to the valuable floor time it is consuming. Passing financial reform out of the Senate this week will  be a tough feat for the Senate Democrats, because more than 100 amendments remain to be considered.