Congress has much unfinished business

Congress is frantically trying to wrap up its 2012 session, with the fates of storm victims, farmers, the military, jobless workers and others highly uncertain. ¶ The current Congress will go out of business at noon Jan. 3. The Senate plans to debate aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy starting Monday, and there's hope that defense-policy legislation will get final approval before the end of this month. Prospects for a farm bill and aid for the long-term unemployed are more dismal. ¶ Such routine matters traditionally aren't the stuff of last-minute deliberations. But this latest bout of dysfunction is typical of this two-year Congress, one that was unusually polarized from the start. The chances of getting much done in the post-election lame-duck session have been compounded by the specter of the fiscal cliff -- the tax increases and spending cuts that are set to kick in early in January if no alternatives are adopted. ¶ "No question this has been the least productive Congress in contemporary history," said Thomas Mann, of Washington's Brookings Institution. The problem isn't just ideological polarization, he said, but also congressional leaders using votes and debate to advance partisan political aims as rarely before. ¶ As a result of this gridlock, the scorecard looks like:

The law that governs payments to farmers and sustains many other agriculture-related programs expired in September, and the two chambers are stuck in negotiations about how to proceed.

In the meantime, revisions to key programs that provide protection from droughts and other emergencies are at risk, a particularly sensitive subject in a year that's seen the worst North American drought in a generation.

One of the major disputes involves reductions in spending on food stamps, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Both parties want to cut it back, but Democrats have proposed cutting far less than Republicans.

Farmers' and ranchers' groups are confident that Congress will act on the farm bill eventually, perhaps next year.

Both houses of Congress have passed versions of legislation spelling out changes in defense policy, but nothing is final until negotiators, and then both chambers, agree on a single bill. An agreement could come this week.

The Senate needed about six months to write its measure, and it voted earlier this month to authorize $631.4 billion for defense, about $4 billion less than the House of Representatives.

The White House is seeking $60.4 billion to help victims of Hurricane Sandy. Though Senate debate will proceed this week, the timing of any final action remains uncertain.

The measure has powerful champions in both parties, notably Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, the Senate's third-ranking Democrat, and GOP New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who joined New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, in a joint statement praising the initiative.

Such legislation used to pass almost automatically. In recent years, conservative Republicans have demanded spending reductions elsewhere to pay for the aid. House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., was sympathetic. But, he said, it is Congress' responsibility to make sure that storm victims get the most of every single recovery dollar.

What used to be automatic -- providing additional aid to the long-term unemployed -- has become a struggle.

Some jobless workers can get up to 73 weeks of benefits in harder-hit states, but the maximum will be capped at six months at the end of the year unless Congress acts. The National Employment Law Project, which researches unemployment trends, estimates that 2 million people could be affected.