By Freddie Mooche

(AXcess News) Washington - The Federal Reserve said Monday that US consumers borrowed less in December for the eleventh month in a row and that more where saving cash and paying down credit card balances as fear over the direction of the US economy continued.

Total borrowing in December dropped $1.8 billion, the Federal Reserve said.  Credit card borrowing dropped $8.5 billion while other borrowing increased by $6.8 billion.  November borrowing was revised to a $21.8 billion drop.

While economic uncertainty certainly prevailed in consumer sentiment last November, the fact that Democrats have pushed through credit card reform intent on squeezing the credit card issuers into a more consumer friendly borrowing environment has had just the opposite effect and consumers are growing more the wise of it in paying down credit card debt before the banks get a chance to hike rates while they still can.

Credit card borrowing as a result will most likely continue to drop and perhaps the rate of decline will be even higher.  Most likely overall consumer borrowing in January will once again show a 12th consecutive month of decline and hopefully, savings levels will rise.

Only big ticket items like automobiles where seeing financial activity in the banking community in November, though here again the 'cash for clunkers' program may have added to that volume as the program neared its final days without Congress stepping up to pour cash into it.  With political pressure mounting in Washington the likelihood of unchecked federal spending aimed at benefiting the recovery process will be slow to be enacted now that Democrats lack the super majority vote in the Senate needed to pass legislation.

The Senate is set to roll out its version of a jobs bill today, though following one of the worst snow storms in Washington history over the weekend, Democrats may be pushed back a few days.  Majority Speaker Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) skipped town Friday to fly back to Las Vegas.  It could be the odds where that Reid took advantage of the storm's threat to get out of the political oven the Senate faced on the appointment to office of the Massachusetts Republican who beat out the Democratic contender for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat.  Freshman lawmaker Scott Brown even got Kennedy's office, which had to rattle many of his Blue constituents.