Lame Duck Congress: What Was The Biggest Accomplishment?

After months of Congressional stalemate, the lame duck session saw a flurry of activity. Round the clock discussions and deals resulted in landmark legislation reaching President Obama's desk almost daily. All this started days after Republicans gained the majority of seats in the House of Representatives and Obama's popularity seemed to be at an all-time low. See below for a list of the accomplishments, and let us know what you think of the lame-duck session's busy month.

Susan Page, the Washington Bureau Chief at USA Today, discussed the lame-duck accomplishments on the Brian Lehrer Show today.

I think President Obama deserves a fair amount of credit, he took that quick deal on tax cuts that caused a lot of consternation among his liberal base but that cleared the decks for some other things to happen, there was no guarantee that the new START treaty was going to be ratified, or that Don't Ask Don't Tell was going to be repealed as a standalone bill. So I think President Obama, who sometimes gets criticized for not being as politically adept as many had thought he would be in 2008, I think he gets some credit for this rather remarkable close to the 111th Congress.

Yet Page cautions that Americans shouldn't get too optimistic about bipartisanship in the second half of Obama's term. The next Congress will have a much more conservative tilt, not only in the Democrat/Republican ratio, but within the Republican party itself, considering all the Tea Party candidates elected in November.

I think that the cooperation that we saw in the last couple of days and the last couple of weeks, I do not think that is necessarily a template for what we're going to see when the new year comes around.

Page thinks the biggest battle to come will be around the omnibus spending bill—she predicts Republicans will try to block any funding for the implementation of health care reform and financial regulation.

But before we jump to the uncertainty of 2011, here's a basic rundown of what happened in the lame-duck session:

• Taxes—Passage of an $850 billion tax package to extend Bush-era tax cuts for two years, reduce payroll taxes for one year, and re-institute the estate tax.
• Unemployment Benefits—Tied to the tax bill, extension of unemployment benefits for the next 13 months.
• Appropriations—Passage of a Continuing Resolution to fund the government until February.
• Nuclear Arms Reduction—Ratification of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia.
• Gay Rights—Repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell allowing people to be open about their sexuality in the military.
• Military Funding—Approval of the $725 billion Defense Authorization bill.
• Food Safety—Approval of a bill to give the FDA more authority over the nation's food supply. 
• Child Nutrition—Passage of bill to expand the school lunch program and set new standards to improve nutrition of school meals.
• Confirmation of 19 Judicial Nominees (and deferral of four others).
• 9/11 Health—Passage of the $4.3 billion James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Bill to cover the costs of medical care for workers and others who became ill after cleaning up ground zero.

What do you think of the President's month, and year? How did it happen? Was it enough? What else do you wish had been accomplished and what does it mean for 2011? Let us know!