This Week on Capitol Hill

Congress pops back into town for a quick lame-duck session this week (with its '07-'08 members), before heading home for the holidays.

A new lease for GM: The House and Senate will wrestle over whether - and how - to toss automakers a cash life-line to keep Detroit in business. The US car industry won a $25 billion loan in September to help it transition its fleet from gas-guzzlers to green-lovers, but carmakers will only see those dollars will after certain milestones are met. Meanwhile, sputtering sales has GM, Ford and Chrysler wondering if they'll have the cash flow to make it through '09. Dems would like to extend a second loan of $25 billion, taken from the $700 billion bailout bill, to tide the Big Three over; the administration and GOP would rather change the terms of the auto-industry's September loan to make that cash available today. Whether congressional leaders can push an agreement through this week - or leave Detroit on the hook until January 20 (when a new, more rescue-friendly administration comes to town) is up in the air.

• To vet the arguments on whether to bail or not, citizenJoe suggests: Bill Saporito at Time asking Is General Motors Worth Saving?, the New Republic's Jonathan Cohn responding Yes, former Airline Exec Michael Levine declaring No
• For more on DC's handling of the economic crisis, see citizenJoe's briefing

The smallest of economic fixes: Having tried for the past few months to sign off on a second stimulus bill, with $50 - $150 billion going toward infrastructure projects and state health care programs, Dems have now put off hopes for any large economic boost until Obama comes to town. They do plan this week, however, to okay $6 billion to extend unemployment benefits - by seven weeks in most states and by thirteen weeks in states with greater than 6% unemployment.

• See citizenJoe's economic booster page for more on this year's earlier stimulus package

If you want to let your Congressfolk know where you stand on any of the issues above, you can email them through Congress.org, because...

Hey, it's your democracy too.

- teamJoe

Next update: January 6, 2009 - unless Congress decides to stick around next week.