Analysis: Dog of Year in Congress Whimpers to End Barring uncharacteristically swift work by Congress, more than a million victims of the recession will lose long-term employment benefits over the holidays, the price of milk could shoot up in late winter and government payments might fall sharply for doctors who treat Medicare patients. There's more - much more - as lawmakers grasp the tail end of a dog of a year. Federal payments to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands will begin shrinking, at least temporarily, on Jan. 1. Tax breaks will expire temporarily for millions of people in states without an income tax, and also for the relatively few Americans who own racehorses. They are routine deadlines gone unmet in a year more likely to be remembered for a tea party-inspired partial government shutdown, the stalling of President Barack Obama's agenda, repeated failed Republican attempts to eviscerate the health care law and a successful move by Senate Democrats to limit opposition to White House judicial nominees. The blame game transcends all. Republicans have "made good faith, serious efforts to Senate Democrats" to resolve differences on year-end issues, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said recently. When will they learn to say 'yes' to common ground? The House Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, attacked Republicans for opposing an increase in the minimum wage, voting to cut $40 billion out of food stamps, and seeking reductions in school money and college aid for low-income families. "I mean, how unconscionable can that be?" she asked at a meeting scripted to build support for extending unemployment benefits. A much-ballyhooed year-end stab at bipartisanship is designed chiefly to ease the impact of across-the-board spending cuts that resulted from an earlier episode of gridlock. Even a compromise probably would face strong opposition from tea party-aligned conservatives in the House whose tactics have opened a deep divide within the GOP. Whatever the deal might be, Milton Wolf, a tea party-backed primary challenger to Republican Sen. Pat Roberts in Kansas, is against it. It will "raise spending levels by billions of dollars and continue to provide funding for Obamacare," he said in a statement. He's right that the health care law would survive because most Republicans have no interest in reprising a partial government shutdown that sent the party's approval ratings plummeting this fall. But there is no deal yet, and officials in both parties say Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the chief Republican negotiator, is insisting that any eventual agreement push deficits lower than they would be if across-the-board cuts were left untouched. With the House on track to adjourn for the year at the end of this coming week and the Senate hoping to file out a week later, much attention is focused on the talks between Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. But what might emerge from those discussions isn't expected to address a stack of routine unfinished business, some of which probably will carry over into 2014. Lawmakers are at work drafting a three-month measure to prevent a 24 percent drop in Medicare payments to doctors, the residue of an ambitious plan for a permanent overhaul of the entire system. The cost is estimated at about $8 billion. A similar extension, perhaps for as little as one month, is the alternative to a milk price fiasco.