Well, it’s the first of January and they managed to cobble together something passed overwhelmingly by the Senate – including a whole bunch of Republicans. Credit to be given? To those of us who complained loud and long to the poobaas of the legislative and executive branches of government, demanding that they do their jobs. It appears everybody “got it” – that not passing anything was worse than passing an imperfect piece of legislation. Duh!

So what happens next? We move on to deal with lingering issues over the next couple of months.

Here’s what I conclude – the big winners out of this will be Mitch McConnell and those Republicans that voted for the package. They have begun to challenge the myth that raising any taxes at all will get you unelected. If that myth were true, Mitt Romney would have been elected President on November 6th. Yes, Virginia, it’s a package deal. Obama campaigned on the issue and he won. The Republicans – with the notable exception of Marco Rubio – got that message somewhere along the line. Raising taxes on people who make a lot of money won’t kill anybody – in fact, it’s the start of some fiscal sanity. As a result, the market will be up tomorrow, in anticipation of the House getting the memo too. If Boehner is smart, he’ll make that happen.

So was all this high drama? Performance art? Maybe a little bit – but more than likely, it was the same dance every government has performed since George Washington was President. What will come of it? Ups and downs, but after tomorrow’s vote, the world will heave a collective sigh of relief and we’ll be off to making 2013 a better year for everyone.