People sure do have a talent for making things lots more complicated than they need to be. We spend so much time reading between the lines, looking for clues and clarity, it's a wonder anything gets done at all -- which, as you might guess, is a perfect cue to skewer Congress, the ultimate spot of wonder and awe should anything ever be accomplished.
Despite all the hoopla and hocus-pocus, nothing much has changed at all, not even with all the foaming and frothing at the mouth lately over finances. There are still a couple of brands of Republicans haggling and mule-trading with a couple brands of Democrats, everyone happily and heartily posing for the folks back home, as they do their Homeric, heroic battles in the homeland of D.C., shedding all their usual stalling and finally doing their jobs, albeit at the last possible moment.
Flying the GOP banner, there are the Psychos and the Semi-Psychos: The former are convinced they have no obligation or responsibility to fellow humans, fellow Americans, nor to the country itself. Psychos joined government in order to bring government to a complete halt, thereby saving money that would be better lavished on billionaires.
The latter group, the Semi-Psychos, still maintain a tentative tether to the Real World, but understand they are in office during an era of unprecedented right-wing extremism and madness unseen since the days of Caligula and Genghis Khan. In order to provide themselves cover and re-election opportunities, members of this group spout and sputter irrational nonsense and non sequiturs in public pronouncements, but are cagy, canny, and cunning operators in private.