The question was pressing because following the momentous November 2006 midterms, control of the House and the Senate changed hands. In a turn of events that can only be described as fateful, it would be the Democrats who held power in Congress during the greatest crisis of American capitalism since the 1930s. But that was in the future. In 2006 the question was whether the Democrats, as the new power on Capitol Hill, should once again take responsibility for cutting the deficit.
