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

Republicans are jumping on the anti-earmark bandwagon after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced his support for a GOP earmark ban.

As Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain is fond of saying, Congress, with an approval rating of 9 percent to 13 percent, is down to “blood relatives and paid staff.” It is no wonder that President Barack Obama is running against the “do-nothing” 112th Congress and that the pitch is resonating with lots of voters.

Let’s start with the stark reality: Second presidential terms rarely result in major accomplishments. Presidents have few new ideas that have not been posed in their first two years, and already met with success or failure. And second-term presidents face even more obduracy from the opposition, bitter at a second loss of the big prize. 

There’s good reason to believe the relationship between Romney and the Tea Party-driven congressional Republicans will be exceptional only in the severity of its uneasiness. This is not an example of passionate matrimony, but a mere wedding of convenience—and it’s safe to say the honeymoon won’t last long.

The permanent campaign mindset dominates politics in Congress right now. And it does not bode well for finding solutions to problems.

Policymakers should not wait any longer to address the growing fiscal crisis in this country. Responsible reform of Medicare is a major component of any plan to place the country back on a sustainable fiscal path.

Holding hostage the debt ceiling--meaning the full faith and credit of the United States to pay obligations incurred in the past by this Congress and its predecessors--threatening to take the risk of creating a depression or at least a serious recession unless all one's demands are met, is simply reckless.