Gifts and Guesses

Gift-giving in America did not stop when Santa returned to wherever. Our political masters – or servants, depending on your point of view – did not rest between the Sundays that bracketed Christmas and New Year. While many  Americans were fighting their way home through record-breaking snow storms, and figuring out what to do with some sweater -- the most frequently returned of all gifts in a year in which retailers expect about 18 per cent of every gift they sold to be returned – congress was at work.