But it would be hard to pass such complex changes by December 31st.

ECONOMIST: Fiscal policy: Cliff-diving | The

But it is not clear it would pass muster with the House Republicans, who view it (rightly) as a blatant abdication of responsibility that does not stipulate any deficit reduction at all.

ECONOMIST: The debt ceiling

He said the "right to move" was just an idea at the moment but he would pass a law bringing it into effect if the other measures did not succeed in increasing the mobility of tenants.

BBC: Social tenants in England to get wider home swap choice

But if they knew they would eventually pass it, as most of them surely believed, then they had one of two choices.

WSJ: Review & Outlook: The GOP's Payroll Tax Fiasco

It's the type of wisdom that grandparents would typically pass on, but most soldiers don't live near their extended families to get their advice.

NPR: Program Aims to Help Troops with Young Children

You have to work back from there -- and this is a little bit of an imprecise science -- but you have to work back from there to allow for what it would take to write and pass legislation that would take care of this issue.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

But Congress ought to, the House ought to pass those tax cuts right away because it would send a tremendous positive signal to the American people that in the wake of this election we can, at the very least, come together and convert into law a bill that everyone agrees should become law -- Republicans and Democrats alike, the President included.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney,

But legislation to that effect repeatedly failed to pass, including a 1774 bill that would have outlawed it in the Colonies.

FORBES: The Push-Up Contest: Today's Trial by Combat?

Sir Digby once called the unions "increasingly irrelevant", but when he was appointed by Mr Brown he said, despite past criticism of the government, it would be wrong to pass up the opportunity to help put business at the heart of a new administration.

BBC: NEWS | UK | UK Politics | MPs laugh about 'Comrade Digby'

But the Justice Department and the FBI want Congress to pass a quite different bill, one, which would make it easier for them secretly to gain access to suspects' computers in their homes, to gather passwords, to install "recovery devices" and to disable encryption and security software.

BBC: Paul Reynolds, BBC Washington Correspondent