I can't see Congress refusing to pay for troops overseas no matter which party is in the WH - not when it can be argued that we were attacked on 9/11 (unlike, say, the Nicaragua situation). I think he would have more trouble if he tried to declare victory and pull out prematurely (but, of course, it depends on the situation on the ground).

I am more concerned about things like what happened with Reagan's 1981 tax package or the 160-some-odd billion dollar tax package that Bush just signed. In order to get anything passed, there will have to be compromises between the Senate and House versions of funding bills. The conference comittees will - yet again - have have tremendous power to write what they want into the bills. Pork will be farmed like never before. Fiscal restraint will go out the window, there will be no "pay as you go" rules passed, until someone like Perot gets enough people riled about the situation (something that would take several years). Congress does not like any restraint on spending - they get reelected by pointing to things they've done for their districts. I fear that things will have to get very dire again for spending restraint to be written into law again - no matter what Kerry says he'll do. :-(

Another concern is that Kerry would either be forced to nominate right-leaning judges that would be passed by a partisan Senate or he would feel that he had to make a stand and nominate judges that his supporters would like. Either way, one can envision tremendous battles over judges. Another huge backlog of unfilled judges could develop, leading to even longer delays in the courts and even less of a counterweight to presidential and congressional power.

I can also see lots of battles over budget priorities.

Divided government works well when the branches have definite majorities. It can lead to a mess when the houses are ~ 50:50 and the President doesn't have a clear mandate (as we've seen in the last 3+ years). A lot of these concerns would go out the window if Kerry won by 55:44 and won 40+ states (and took the Senate with him). But that supposedly is not in the cards (though I'm reminded that few expected Reagan to beat Carter as badly as he did and even fewer expected him to take the Senate too).

On another related topic:
Has anyone else noticed that the [link|http://www.conference-board.org/economics/press.cfm?press_id=2503|Index of Leading Economic Indicators] has fallen for the last 4 months? While the press release says it's not a concern, IIRC, usually 3 months in a row is taken to forecast a recession in the next 6-9 months. Oil prices are still at very high levels and show no sign of falling soon. I'm not as sanguine as Greenspan in thinking that we can keep chugging along at 3-4% real GDP growth with oil prices so high. If the US does fall into recession in the next year, there will be even more pressure for increased social spending and even less fiscal restraint - no matter who controls the WH or the Senate.

I fear things are going to get a lot more complicated in the next 6-9 months - whether we have a divided governement or not. :-(

Cheers,
Scott.