The "fiscal cliff" deadline is days away and the U.S. Congress and President Barack Obama have left town for Christmas. But even if they were still here, it wouldn't have mattered, according to Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives. He says they were going nowhere to resolving the disagreement over how to fix the nation's fiscal problems. Last month's dreams of a "grand bargain" of tax hikes and spending cuts seem long gone. They had been reduced to more modest bargains in mid-December, and as 2013 approaches, are on the verge of relegation to a "stop-gap measure," at best the ... (full story)