WASHINGTON -- It isn't much of a surprise that the 107th Congress is ending without much of a record of accomplishment. It had a spurt of success in its early months, passing President George W. Bush's mammoth tax cut and pushing through a respectable education program, but little has been accomplished since the partisan flip of the Senate in May of last year.

Already two weeks past the scheduled adjournment date for Congress with no end in sight, little real progress is expected on any of the important bills that have piled up in the House and Senate. Foremost among the unpassed bills is the president's top priority -- the bill to create a Department of Homeland Security. It is still stuck with a Senate that won't budge on employment-rights issues for the civil servants who will be moved into the mammoth new agency and with the president's people who want to have total control over who works for them. It won't get unstuck before the Nov. 5 elections.

The government will work under continuing resolutions, since virtually none of the appropriations bills has been passed. The energy bill will likely be left on the conference table, with no hope of working out the differences between the House and Senate conferees that have very different ideas on major issues.