Did anything really big happen?

Nope, just a bunch of re arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic in my view. I doubt if any meaningful change in taxation, spending or growth in goverment trends will change in the next 2 years. There will be more vengeful campaigns, lots of money tossed at demopublicans by lobbyists, the Alternative Minimum Tax will not be amended, auto fuel mileage will not be addressed, nope, not much will really change . . . . . oh wait a minute. Maybe we'll start pulling out of Iraq.