Here is another good news/bad news column about the 112th Congress.

The retirement of Rep. Barney Frank from the House will cause mourning among all in the Congress-watcher and Congress-lover fraternity.  Meanwhile, the super committee’s inability to reach any agreement was shrugged off by most observers as the expected outcome, and it was, but I was deeply disappointed nonetheless.

Joesph Antos' statement on premium support for Medicare before the House Committee on Ways and Means' Subcommittee on Health

Our research shows that competitive bidding—a key feature of the Wyden-Ryan plan—could save Medicare $339 billion over ten years while maintaining basic benefits and without raising taxes. Crucially, the elderly would not be exposed to the risk of higher health care costs, as in approaches that would set fixed voucher payments toward the purchase of medical insurance.

Tax Analysts' Martin A. Sullivan recently sat down with Alex Brill, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, to discuss his tax reform plan, which he hopes can win bipartisan support.

The chances of solving the country's fiscal problems, like the federal budget deficit and increase in entitlement spending, seem a little better after the release of two sets of proposals in the weeks after the election.

In the remaining days of its lame-duck session, the House should adoptthe narrowly drawn Domenici-Landrieubill to expand Gulf Coast oil and gas production.

For all the public wrangling we are seeing over the super committee — mostly centered on tax reform and revenues as a key component of a compromise — the big issue facing policymakers in the coming years is health care costs.