This was supposed to be a year of deep spending cuts, investment tax-break extensions, an ambitious, market-conscious overhaul of the Social Security system and a series of legislative items favored by social conservatives.
But Republican leaders will spend the rest of the week scrambling to piece together and pass the remnants of a legislative agenda beset by internal GOP divisions, damage to the president's public approval, investigations of the two majority leaders and the devastation visited on the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina. |