There’s a pretty good summary of the Republican-controlled US Congress in this week’s Time magazine cover story (also at time.com) -
To win votes back home, lawmakers in session have been spending like sailors on leave, producing the biggest budget deficits in history. The party’s approach to national security has taken the country into a war that most Americans now believe was a mistake and that the government’s own intelligence experts say has shaped “a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives.”