That is, there will be no bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, no sweeping tax cut stimulus, no debt ceiling increase and no appropriations bills for FY 2018, which happens to commence on that date.

What there will be, instead, is the opening days of the fiscal year from hell that will witness repeated funding and government shutdown crises. Three decades of kicking the can will come to roost on the front doorstep of a White House that will be hunkered down in a rear guard action to save its occupant from being carried away by the same warmed-up helicopter engines that took Nixon for his last ride 43 years ago this summer.

Your editor recalls the sight of it as if it only happened yesterday; and the feeling as an idealistic youngster that the system had been "saved" from the clutches of a bad man in the Oval Office.