The Fiscal Cliff bill may have saved us from the brink, but there is trouble ahead as we approach the “March madness” of raising the debt ceiling, approving the budget and dealing with the mandatory spending cuts known as the sequester. Investment banker Peter Solomon tells Jim how things will likely play out with a new Treasury Secretary and  a deeply divided Congress.

The biographer of Speaker Thomas B. Reed tells about the Gilded Age in America from 1870-1893, a time of dysfunctional government and deep partisan divide over such issues as international trade, monetary policy and  foreign wars. Sound familiar? Reed, a staunch Republican from Maine, ungummed the government and broke the logjam.

The distinguished author tells us what we can learn from Calvin Coolidge, our 30th President. Though a man of few words, Coolidge believed in less government, balanced budgets, lower taxes and a climate friendly to business. Unemployment averaged 3.3 per cent. Yet, in the vortex of the Great Depression and the New Deal which followed, his legacy has all but disappeared.

The Democratic political strategist talks about  the way forward for Obama as he faces a Republican House and a Senate where Democrats cling to a razor-thin majority.

Attorney General Gonzales was forced out over his role in the firing of eight United States Attorneys. Was it all because of the tell-tale emails? Get the inside from Special Watergate prosecutor Ben-Veniste.