Well, here we go (again) a new congressional year. Let's talk about the values of public life in this settings. What are the highest values you hold for our life together and how do those values get played out in the decisions of Congress? Where do they come from and why do you hold them? I have a list: safe infrastructure and environment, education, community health, concern for neighbor, jobs for everyone who can work - at a fair wage, support for those down on their luck, providing a hope for all children's future, public safety and protection, international safety. Those are some of mine but not necessarily in the order of importance. Mine come from my faith. How about you? Where do your elected officials fall on these questions?

There are components of our community that might answer very similarly but with significant differences. Safe infrastructure and environment (but not if it means holding corporations accountable), education (for some), community health (of the highest degree, for those who can afford it), concern for neighbor (just the ones on either side of me), jobs for everyone who can work - at a fair wage (a job force that can produce for the owners), support for those down on their luck (if we mean the top 1 % because for them the issue is luck, for everyone else it is their own fault), providing a hope for all children's future (well, some children), public safety and protection (against those who are different), international safety (through fighting, not in diplomacy). Well, you get my drift. We all need to know which values we want lifted up and why and then let's talk about our differences and see what compromises we can some up with.

In Speaker Boehner's speech Wednesday he promised to use the House's rules in an open, neutral way; to work through the "scar tissue" that had built up between Democrats and Republicans in recent years; to administer the House without gimmicks or shortcuts; "to disagree without being disagreeable." There is certainly a set of values I can get behind.

But a few hours later, as reported in the Washington Post, "Republicans seized control of the House with gusto.....The rules rewrite, which sailed through the House on a strict party-line vote, will also make it easier to increase the national debt by exempting trillions of dollars in GOP priorities from pay-as-you-go rules put in place by Democrats. For example, House Republicans could extend the Bush administration's tax cuts for the wealthy past their 2012 expiration or create a significant new tax break for businesses without regard for the holes those policies would blow in the nation's finances".

So much for playing well with others. Well, on with the debate and we have be part of that debate. What are the values we want manifest in this Congress? Speak now, plans are being made.