Rep. Dave Camp is chairman of the esteemed House Ways and Means Committee, the oldest of all congressional panels and one with so much influence over the workings of the federal government that its past chairmen were routinely described as the most powerful men in Washington.
But committee chairmanships are not what they used to be on Capitol Hill.
When the House of Representatives voted Jan. 1 to allow tax increases on wealthy wage earners, the most significant tax increase in more than two decades, Camp found himself advocating passage of an unpopular compromise that he had had no role in crafting.