already covered
http://www.habitablezone.com/space/messages/439058.html
Hi Raoul -
There will be a new congress elected here next week, and US space policy will be redifined yet once again, at least in details. US outyear plans for the 2010-until CEV period are likely to be tightly defined then - say Feb-March next year.
I see the EU/ESA has already been working with Russia to cover contingencies in the event of US failure. I can't imagine that happening, but in any case it is unlikely that Russia would abandon ISS, and they have money enough now to see that that the ISS wouldn't fail.
It will be interesting to see what happens.