NEW YORK (CNN) - The stock market dropped today, the Dow plummeted more than 350 points... all the major indexes fell a whopping 4 percent on the day. Most Wall Street gurus are blaming the sell-off on a bad report on manufacturing, and Wall Street downgrades of Intel and Citigroup. While I certainly wouldn't argue with their reasoning, I would add another potential cause of the decline.

The nation's capitol today went back to work. The Senate and the president have returned to Washington... and the House is back tomorrow. That's sufficient reason anytime for investor, consumer and taxpayer anxiety. As Mark Twain said, "No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session." To illustrate, the market actually went up while the Congress and the president were on working vacations last month. Not much, but a gain nonetheless. And today the Standard and Poor's 500 Index suffered its greatest decline since the exchanges opened following the September 11th attacks. And the Dow and the Nasdaq are now below their levels of last September 10th.

On the president's return to Washington, there've been a few reports that he was less than eager to return to Washington from Texas... as if that somehow diminished him. That somehow there's something not right about his preference for cutting wood and brush on his ranch, rather than attending state dinners and presiding over Rose Garden ceremonies. That he'd rather take his chances with rattlesnakes, spiders and ticks in the baking Texas sun than deal with the press and negotiate with congressional leaders on Capital Hill. I don't know about you, but I'd question his judgment if he felt otherwise.