If a plumber just up and left in the middle of a job, leaving you with a clogged drain or without water while taking a few days off, a few days of vacation, there's a better than average chance that you would not let him back in your home. You would call another plumber, a more reliable one, to finish what the first plumber had started but failed to complete.

Your reaction would be the same to any technician or professional who took a break, long or short, before finishing whatever pressing task he had been hired to do.

Well, should we expect no less consideration from the men and women we elect to the U.S. Congress? Shouldn't they be held accountable for what they do or fail to do? These are not minimum wage jobs they hold. Even if they were, one would expect them to complete whatever assignment or assignments they are being paid to carry out.

That includes hammering out an agreement between Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives and Democrats in the U.S. Senate before working individuals and working families get clobbered by an avoidable tax hike. All will lose a larger chunk of their paychecks, a slice they can ill-afford to give up, if Congress is unable to agree on a plan to continue the Bush tax cuts. There's also that "fiscal cliff" nonsense that senior citizens and military personnel have to worry about if Congress continues to play politics-as-usual in the District of Columbia. That might be good for those trying to score a few measly points against the other party, but it will be bad for everyone else. Everyone else.

Senate and House members should have stayed in Washington this week or until they finished the job they have been hired to do, which is to keep the nation from free-falling into a financial pit. They are returning today, but from the looks of it, they might have needed the entire week to prevent fiscal irresponsibility from expanding its root system in Washington.

A plumber doesn't leave the job site until all is in working order. Voters expect the same commitment from Congress.