Monday: Washington's warning, and a few votes

Congress will start the week by hearing a reminder from President George Washington of the danger that political parties pose to the United States. By the end of the week, Congress will likely prove Washington's point by engaging in a partisan brawl over taxes and spending.

Lucky guess, George.

The Senate meets at 2 p.m. and will hear the annual reading of Washington's farewell address, this year by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.).

Among other things, Washington said:

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty."

At 5 p.m., the Senate will debate the nomination of Robert Bacharach to be a 10th Circuit Court judge. A vote is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.

The House also meets at 2 p.m., but it has just one bill on the agenda: H.R. 667, naming the Dryden Flight Research Center after astronaut Neil Armstrong. If a roll call vote is needed, it will happen at 6:30 p.m.

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