They're Baaaack ...

Congress returns to town on Tuesday for the first time in a month (except for their brief sessions last week to pass the $10.5 billion emergency funding bill for hurricane relief), and they've got a rather full helping on their plate, to say the least. This USA Today piece and this from the Minneapolis Star Tribune give a decent overview of the agenda, which may shift wildly during the first few days of the session.

Already we're seeing some changes in what the Republican leadership had hoped to deal with upon their return: Senator Frist announced on Monday that a bill to repeal the estate tax - which I discussed here - has been "temporarily shelved" so that the Senate can deal with more pressing matters. That might be the wisest political move Frist has made during this entire session of Congress.

There is much work to be done, and what gets accomplished during the next couple of months could well be very important factors - if not the deciding factors - in next year's vital midterm elections. All the things that were on Congress' plate back in July: stem cells, budget bills, illegal immigration, gas prices, Supreme Court hearings, are all still there to be dealt with. But now there are the added major issues (a second Court vacancy, the much-needed questions in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the response to it, and rising concerns about the state of things in Iraq, and others) that must be dealt with as well.

Congress needs to buckle down this fall and get to work. The pressure's on.