IT IS as well that Santa Claus does not need congressional confirmation. With many Democrats in a populist mood, the old boy could expect harsh questions about the unequal nature of American stocking-fillers (whoopee cushions for the masses, iPods for the children of the 1%), and how that tallies with his privileged status as a tax-exempt, offshore provider of Christmas cheer. There might be calls for federal standards and a surtax on the priciest toys. A memo from the health-conscious First Lady, Michelle Obama, might demand more tangerines and fewer sweets. As for Republicans, they would surely quiz Santa about his policy of showering toys on hard-working and feckless families alike, with no thought for incentives or costs. Some ambitious senators might go further, wondering by what right (and with which surveillance tools) this mysterious foreigner purports to know whether American children have been naughty or nice. Washington starts the holidays in a combative mood. Both sides seem sure that repeating their respective greatest hits (Make the rich pay their fair share! Stop spending so much!) will bring political rewards in 2014, a year that will bring battles over the budget, Obamacare and, in November, mid-term elections. Polls suggest that voters would give each member of Congress a lump of coal for Christmas if they could, yet partisans seem unruffled. Both sides expect the other to mess up again, as they did in 2013. Democrats recall how in October Senator Ted Cruz of Texas bullied fellow-Republicans into shutting down the government for 16 days, in an obviously doomed bid to defund Obamacare. Swing voters hated that. Mr Cruz's antics reassured liberals that conservatives always overreach. Democratic fingers are crossed that Republicans will show similar ineptitude in 2014. For their part Republicans look at Obamacare's continuing woes and see a delicious fable about the incompetence of a presidential team they scorn as callow, insular and obsessed with politics above policy. Over and above its lousy website, Obamacare was mis-sold. The president promised that it would bring new or improved coverage to millions left outside traditional schemes, would lower costs without rationing, preserve popular policies and improve quality without increasing the deficit. Some of those good things may yet happen. But all were never going to be possible at the same time. In essence, Mr Obama promised that huge reforms could be enacted without trade-offs. Now that voters have realised that was untrue, cock-a-hoop Republicans hope to ride their anger all the way to the mid-terms. Mr Obama ends 2013 in a bad place. But Republicans as well as Democrats should beware of overconfidence. The two parties face similar perils. Both are guilty of overpromising for ideological programmes that cannot give voters what they most want. America's modern woes are well-rehearsed. A pithy recent summary comes from Third Way, a centrist think-tank. Between 1977 and 2012 prices and median family income almost quadrupled. But the costs of "big ticket" items needed to enter the middle class rose much more over the same period: average house prices quintupled, while personal health-care expenditures and college tuition fees rose tenfold. Some core middle-class goods are now priced as luxuries - explaining why many Americans feel so squeezed. What voters really want is for that world of stagnant wages and higher costs to go away. Stars of the populist left, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, suggest that something of the sort could be achieved by extracting more in taxes from the rich and from businesses, and by beating up big banks. An alarming number of Democrats promise that by such means, hard choices about public spending or Social Security could yet be avoided. Scan the fine print of Mr Obama's speeches about inequality, and he offers a more modest vision of what government can do. He talks of "expanding opportunity" with such policies as a hike in the minimum wage, more cash for pre-schools, tweaks to taxes to make it less profitable to send jobs overseas and White House meetings at which the bosses of big companies are urged to hire the long-term unemployed. Even Obamacare is more cautious than its detractors suggest: it works with existing, private health insurers, and borrows key ideas from Republican schemes. There is only one Santa Voters are still angry. A new AP poll should freeze Democrats" blood. It shows many Americans blaming Mr Obama's health law after employers made them pay more of their health costs or restricted their benefits, though such trends pre-date Obamacare by several years. By overselling his reforms, the president is finding (as sceptics warned) that he now owns everything about health care that makes Americans cross. Democrats are being punished after overpromising for government. Yet Republicans also make over-large promises for their favoured solution: the absence of government intervention. Take health care. Dig into Republican alternatives to Obamacare, and they revisit old, business-friendly conservative ideas: eg, allowing interstate competition between insurers (a swipe at states with strict consumer rules), making it harder to sue doctors and allowing Americans to buy cheap policies that cover only the largest bills. If more Americans knew the details of these cut-price Republican solutions, they would seethe. They think that they hear Mr Cruz and Co promising that - for today's well-insured insiders - nothing need change. It is a similar story with other supply-side staples that make Republicans swoon, from tax-cutting and welfare-slashing to deregulation. Some of these might help the economy, others might not. But - in common with Mr Obama's brand of cautious statism - Republican ideas are at once too ideological to win broad support, and too small to tackle the problems that anger many voters. Both parties are better at wish-lists than deliveries.